ZEBRAFISH AS A MODEL FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE-INDUCED COGNITIVE DYSFUNCTION: A PHARMACOLOGICAL, BIOCHEMICAL AND BEHAVIORAL APPROACH

The human brain is responsible for performing numerous complextasks that are essential for the survival and leading a healthylife. Cognitive functions like learning and memory, complexation, executive function, language, motor and social cognition are important characteristics of healthy brain. This is achieved with coordinated functioning of billions of neurons. Cognitive dysfunction is a disturbance in one or more of these six cognitive domains. Parkinson’s disease (PD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are the most common progressive neurodegenerative disease which affects cognitive functions of an individual. Rats and Mice are the most commonly used animal species for modeling cognitive dysfunctional though multiple models and tests are required to improve validity. This is a financial, logistical and cost constraint for scientific community. RecentlyZebrafish has emerged as a model organism for a variety of diseases. Zebrafish could be the answer to this challenge as it has many advantages overrodents.Important one is their high breeding rate which makes high-throughput screening more feasible and thus increases cost-effectiveness.This review’s objective is to provide a brief discussion on the superiority of zebrafish over rodentsas a model organism for cognitive disorders especially the Parkinson’s disease.