Sleep deprivation improves behavioral performance in zebrafish larvae

Sleep deprivation is known to drastically affect cognitive function including decision-making and attention across many different species. In this study, we leveraged the small size and conserved brain structure of larval zebrafish to investigate the consequences of sleep deprivation in the context of two well-described behaviors, a visual and an olfactory-based decision-making task. We find that in both paradigms, sleep deprivation leads to an improvement in performance. Specifically, we show that sleep deprivation increases reaction time and improves performance in a visual motion discrimination task, an effect that we attribute to longer integration periods in sleep deprived animals. We also find that sleep deprivation leads to increased odor sensitivity, which we show is likely mediated by cortisol. Similar effects have been shown also in humans, and our work allows us to predict specific circuit changes underlying these effects. These findings set the groundwork for further investigation of the underlying circuit changes in the brain that occur as a result of sleep deprivation across different species.