How animals behave using suitable information to adapt to the environment is not well known. We address this issue by devising an automated system to let zebrafish exploit either internal (choice of left or right turn) or external (choice of cue color) navigation information to achieve operant behavior by reward reinforcement learning. The results of behavioral task with repeated rule shift indicate that zebrafish can learn operant behavior using both internal-directional and external-cued information. The learning time is reduced as rule shifts are repeated, revealing the capacity of zebrafish to adaptively retrieve the suitable rule memory after training. Zebrafish with an impairment in the neural pathway from the lateral subregion of the dorsal habenula to the interpeduncular nucleus, known to be potentiated in the winners of social conflicts, show specific defects in the application of the internal-directional rule, suggesting the dual roles of this pathway.

动物如何利用适当的信息适应环境来表现。我们通过设计一个自动化系统来解决此问题，让斑马鱼利用内部（左转或右转选择）或外部（提示色的选择）导航信息来通过奖励强化学习来实现操作行为。具有重复规则移动的行为任务的结果表明，斑马鱼可以使用内部定向信息和外部指示信息来学习操作行为。重复进行规则移位会减少学习时间，从而显示出斑马鱼在训练后能够自适应地检索合适的规则记忆的能力。斑马鱼从背侧哈贝努尔的外侧子区域到椎间盘核之间的神经通路受到损害，已知会增强社交冲突的获胜能力，