How research into zebrafish pain has transformed their welfare status in laboratory settings.
Zebrafish have become a model organism for pain research that has simultaneously advanced our understanding of pain and transformed how we think about fish welfare in research settings. The evidence that zebrafish experience pain-like states — respond to noxious stimuli, have these responses attenuated by analgesics, and show changes in motivated behavior — is now sufficiently robust to warrant treating their potential pain as a welfare responsibility in research design. The 3Rs framework applied to zebrafish pain means considering analgesics and anaesthetics for any procedure likely to cause pain, in the same way as for rodents.