Catching up with ViCoZe: On the path to improving cognitive disease diagnoses
The EU-funded ViCoZe project was launched in 2021 with an interesting mission: to investigate complex forms of learning in zebrafish, to understand where memory processes take place in the brain and which signalling pathways are involved. Since the project’s end in September 2023, the research team has been using the outcomes to explore cognitive function in disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia in zebrafish, with the potential to improve understanding of conditions affecting millions of people worldwide.
Expanding zebrafish learning to psychiatric disease
In the course of the project, ViCoZe researchers set up a state-of-the-art methodological pipeline of investigating cognitive function in zebrafish, which share significant genetic and neurobiological similarities with humans, despite their small size and aquatic nature. The team’s approach combined behavioural experiments with biochemical and neurological analyses, as well as genetics, to decipher the processes in the brain, molecular pathways and genes involved in learning. The researchers are using these methods to study zebrafish cognitive function in psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. “We are now in the very exciting process of connecting the cognitive outcomes with in vivo brain processes, such as myelination, inflammation and cerebral blood flow using genetically modified zebrafish lines, calcium imaging, neurotransmitter measurements and gene expression,” explains Petronella Kettunen, associate professor and lead researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden that was responsible for coordinating the ViCoZe project. “Our goal is to use our findings from the zebrafish in combination with our clinical data to improve the diagnostic processes of underdiagnosed diseases, such as vascular cognitive disease, and provide future, new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia.”
A European helping hand
EU funding has made it possible to gather valuable information about zebrafish cognition ranges. It has also steered the research towards the protection of animal welfare – a sphere in which important information on how to house and handle zebrafish in sustainable ways is still lacking. ViCoZe (Molecular mechanisms underlying elemental and configural learning in zebrafish) therefore initiated the refinement of non-invasive methods to study the physiology and neurobiology of cognitive function in zebrafish. These methods could one day be applied to other species as well. They include new ways to track and interpret animal behaviour and measure secreted stress hormones, thus reducing the need for experiments requiring euthanasia. “Importantly, the know-how and developed methods are already spreading globally and are being used in new projects both in research collaborations and by other independent researchers,” concludes Kettunen. The ‘Life After’ feature shines a light on finished EU-funded projects and what they have achieved since the end of EU funding. If you are interested in having your project featured as a ‘Life After’ project, please send us an email to editorial@cordis.europa.eu and tell us why!
