摘要：SummaryWith the exception of humans, early cognitive development has been thoroughly investigated only in precocial species, well developed at birth and with a broad behavioral and cognitive repertoire. We investigated another highly altricial species, the zebrafish,Danio rerio, whose embryonic development is very rapid (< 72 h). The hatchlings’ nervous system is poorly developed, and their cognitive capacities are largely unknown. Larvae trained at 8 days post fertilization rapidly learned to associate a visual pattern with a food reward, showing significant performance at 10 days post fertilization. We exploited this ability to study hatchlings’ discrimination learning capacities. Larvae rapidly and accurately learned color and shape discriminations. They also discriminated a figure from its mirror image and from its 90°-rotated version, although with lower performance. Our study revealed impressive similarities in learning and visual discrimination capacities between newborn and adult zebrafish, despite their enormous differences in brain size and degree of development.Graphical abstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Newly hatched zebrafish can associate a visual stimulus to a food reward•Learning occurs in just two training days and can be used to study perception•Hatchlings compare to adults in color and shape discrimination•Poorer performance was observed in discriminating rotated shapes and mirror imagesBehavioral neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience
