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. 2023 Dec:265:106765.
doi: 10.1016/j.aquatox.2023.106765. Epub 2023 Nov 11.

Ephedrine and cocaine cause developmental neurotoxicity and abnormal behavior in zebrafish

Dong-Dong Ma  1 , Wen-Jun Shi  2 , Si-Ying Li  1 , Jin-Ge Zhang  1 , Zhi-Jie Lu  1 , Xiao-Bing Long  1 , Xin Liu  3 , Chu-Shu Huang  3 , Guang-Guo Ying  4
Affiliations

Ephedrine and cocaine cause developmental neurotoxicity and abnormal behavior in zebrafish

Dong-Dong Ma et al. Aquat Toxicol. 2023 Dec.

Abstract

Ephedrine (EPH) and cocaine (COC) are illegal stimulant drugs, and have been frequently detected in aquatic environments. EPH and COC have negative effects on the nervous system and cause abnormal behaviors in mammals and fish at high concentrations, but their mechanisms of neurotoxicity remain unclear in larvae fish at low concentrations. To address this issue, zebrafish embryos were exposed to EPH and COC for 14 days post-fertilization (dpf) at 10, 100, and 1000 ng L-1. The bioaccumulation, development, behavior, cell neurotransmitter levels and apoptosis were detected to investigate the developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) of EPH and COC. The results showed that EPH decreased heart rate, while COC increased heart rate. EPH caused cell apoptosis in the brain by AO staining. In addition, behavior analysis indicated that EPH and COC affected spontaneous movement, touch-response, swimming activity and anxiety-like behaviors. EPH and COC altered the levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine (DA) and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) with changes of the transcription of genes related to the DA and GABA pathways. These findings indicated that EPH and COC had noticeable DNT in the early stage of zebrafish at environmentally relevant concentrations.

Keywords: Abnormal behavior; Cocaine; Developmental neurotoxicity; Ephedrine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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