Stressor-specific profiles of impacts in anxiety-like behavior and oxidative imbalance in zebrafish

Distinct stressors elicit unique neurobehavioral and biochemical responses in zebrafish, offering insight into the mechanisms of stress responsivity. Using behavioral assays and lipid peroxidation as markers, we show that alarm substance, unpredictable chronic stress, and subordinate stress produce anxiety-like behaviors and oxidative damage, while and acute restraint stress, dominant stress, and ammonia exposure do not. These outcomes reveal four stressor-specific profiles—Reactive-Inhibited, Hypervigilant, Somatic-Stable, and Low-Impact—each reflecting different combinations of behavioral inhibition and oxidative stress. While these profiles resemble those proposed by the Adaptive Calibration Model, they emerge from acute and chronic stressor dynamics rather as well as developmental programming. Threat salience, controllability, duration, and social context determine whether a stressor remains within adaptive bounds or pushes the organism into homeostatic overload, producing distinct reactive scopes and physiological costs. This framework opens new avenues for comparative biology, welfare assessment, and pharmacological intervention across species.