Behavioral Teleporting of Individual Ethograms Onto Inanimate Robots: Experiments on Social Interactions in Live Zebrafish

Overview

Journal iScience

Publisher Cell Press

Date 2020 Aug 21

PMID 32818837

Citations 5

Authors

Mert Karakaya

Simone Macri

Maurizio Porfiri

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Social behavior is widespread in the animal kingdom, and it remarkably influences human personal and professional lives. However, a thorough understanding of the mechanisms underlying social behavior is elusive. Integrating the seemingly different fields of robotics and preclinical research could bring new insight on social behavior. Toward this aim, we established "behavioral teleporting" as an experimental solution to independently manipulate multiple factors underpinning social interactions. Behavioral teleporting consists of real-time transfer of the complete ethogram of a live zebrafish onto a remotely-located robotic replica. Through parallel and simultaneous behavioral teleporting, we studied the interaction between two live fish swimming in remotely-located tanks: each live fish interacted with an inanimate robot that mirrored the behavior of the other fish, and the morphology of each robot was independently tailored. Our results indicate that behavioral teleporting can preserve natural interaction between two live animals, while allowing fine control over morphological features that modulate social behavior.

Citing Articles

How do you do the things that you do? Ethological approach to the description of robot behaviour.

Korcsok B, Korondi P Biol Futur. 2023; 74(3):253-279.

PMID: 37812380 DOI: 10.1007/s42977-023-00178-z.

Point for Enrichment, Point for Welfare-Testing Use of a Laser Pointer with .

Matrai E, Chan H, Leung F, Kwok S, Lin X, Martelli P Animals (Basel). 2023; 13(8).

PMID: 37106933 PMC: 10135074. DOI: 10.3390/ani13081370.

After 150 years of watching: is there a need for synthetic ethology?.

Abdai J, Miklosi A Anim Cogn. 2022; 26(1):261-274.

PMID: 36445574 PMC: 9877063. DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01719-0.

Acute Citalopram administration alters zebrafish social dynamics in a behavioral teleporting experiment.

Karakaya M, Macri S, Porfiri M Alife. 2022; 2021.

PMID: 35474954 PMC: 9037958. DOI: 10.1162/isal_a_00368.

Body language signals for rodent social communication.

Ebbesen C, Froemke R Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2021; 68:91-106.

PMID: 33582455 PMC: 8243782. DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2021.01.008.

References

Frohnwieser A, Murray J, Pike T, Wilkinson A . Using robots to understand animal cognition. J Exp Anal Behav. 2016; 105(1):14-22. DOI: 10.1002/jeab.193. View

SCHREIBER . Measuring information transfer. Phys Rev Lett. 2000; 85(2):461-4. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.85.461. View

Engeszer R, Wang G, Ryan M, Parichy D . Sex-specific perceptual spaces for a vertebrate basal social aggregative behavior. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008; 105(3):929-33. PMC: 2242707. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0708778105. View

Gerlai R . High-throughput behavioral screens: the first step towards finding genes involved in vertebrate brain function using zebrafish. Molecules. 2010; 15(4):2609-22. PMC: 6257226. DOI: 10.3390/molecules15042609. View

Landgraf T, Bierbach D, Nguyen H, Muggelberg N, Romanczuk P, Krause J . RoboFish: increased acceptance of interactive robotic fish with realistic eyes and natural motion patterns by live Trinidadian guppies. Bioinspir Biomim. 2016; 11(1):015001. DOI: 10.1088/1748-3190/11/1/015001. View

El-Brolosy M, Stainier D . Genetic compensation: A phenomenon in search of mechanisms. PLoS Genet. 2017; 13(7):e1006780. PMC: 5509088. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006780. View

Liu C, Li C, Hu C, Wang Y, Lin J, Jiang Y . CRISPR/Cas9-induced mutant zebrafish display autism-like behaviors. Mol Autism. 2018; 9:23. PMC: 5879542. DOI: 10.1186/s13229-018-0204-x. View

Meshalkina D, N Kizlyk M, Kysil E, Collier A, Echevarria D, Abreu M . Zebrafish models of autism spectrum disorder. Exp Neurol. 2017; 299(Pt A):207-216. DOI: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2017.02.004. View

Engeszer R, Ryan M, Parichy D . Learned social preference in zebrafish. Curr Biol. 2004; 14(10):881-4. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2004.04.042. View

10.

Tang W, Davidson J, Zhang G, Conen K, Fang J, Serluca F . Genetic Control of Collective Behavior in Zebrafish. iScience. 2020; 23(3):100942. PMC: 7068127. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2020.100942. View

11.

Buckner R, Andrews-Hanna J, Schacter D . The brain's default network: anatomy, function, and relevance to disease. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2008; 1124:1-38. DOI: 10.1196/annals.1440.011. View

12.

Staniek M, Lehnertz K . Symbolic transfer entropy. Phys Rev Lett. 2008; 100(15):158101. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.158101. View

13.

Fontana B, Mezzomo N, Kalueff A, Rosemberg D . The developing utility of zebrafish models of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders: A critical review. Exp Neurol. 2017; 299(Pt A):157-171. DOI: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2017.10.004. View

14.

Kalueff A, Echevarria D, Stewart A . Gaining translational momentum: more zebrafish models for neuroscience research. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2014; 55:1-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2014.01.022. View

15.

Stowers J, Hofbauer M, Bastien R, Griessner J, Higgins P, Farooqui S . Virtual reality for freely moving animals. Nat Methods. 2017; 14(10):995-1002. PMC: 6485657. DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.4399. View

16.

Nagy M, Akos Z, Biro D, Vicsek T . Hierarchical group dynamics in pigeon flocks. Nature. 2010; 464(7290):890-3. DOI: 10.1038/nature08891. View

17.

Morris J . Zebrafish: a model system to examine the neurodevelopmental basis of schizophrenia. Prog Brain Res. 2010; 179:97-106. DOI: 10.1016/S0079-6123(09)17911-6. View

18.

Larsch J, Baier H . Biological Motion as an Innate Perceptual Mechanism Driving Social Affiliation. Curr Biol. 2018; 28(22):3523-3532.e4. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.09.014. View

19.

Papaspyros V, Bonnet F, Collignon B, Mondada F . Bidirectional interactions facilitate the integration of a robot into a shoal of zebrafish Danio rerio. PLoS One. 2019; 14(8):e0220559. PMC: 6701756. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220559. View

20.

Kalueff A, Gebhardt M, Stewart A, Cachat J, Brimmer M, Chawla J . Towards a comprehensive catalog of zebrafish behavior 1.0 and beyond. Zebrafish. 2013; 10(1):70-86. PMC: 3629777. DOI: 10.1089/zeb.2012.0861. View