Decoding thermal resilience in fish: Acute warming tolerance is associated with neural failure in rainbow trout

As an effect of climate change, heat waves pose an increasingly more frequent and severe threat to fish populations. Yet, the physiological mechanisms underlying thermal tolerance in fish remain unclear. One hypothesis is that thermal tolerance may be limited by neural failure at high temperatures. Here, we used an electrophysiological approach to test this by assessing the relationship between brain function, determined via recordings of visually evoked responses (VERs) on the electroencephalogram (EEG), and cardioventilatory performance, determined via recordings of ventilatory electromyography (EMG) and electrocardiogram (ECG), in adult rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) exposed to a critical thermal maximum (CTmax) protocol. Our results show that normal brain function is preserved at moderate to high temperatures, however, at CTmax, the fish exhibited loss of VERs indicating brain dysfunction associated with insensibility. This suggests a strong link between neural failure and uppe..., , , # Decoding thermal resilience in fish: Acute warming tolerance is associated with neural failure in rainbow trout

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.3n5tb2rvm](10.5061/dryad.3n5tb2rvm)

## Description of the data and file structure

The current dataset (`Dataset_-_Ekström_et_al.__-_Decoding_thermal_resilience_in_fish_-_Acute_warming_tolerance_is_associated_with_neural_failure_in_rainbow_trout.xlsx `) contains the supporting data for the findings published in our paper entitled \"Decoding thermal resilience in fish - Acute warming tolerance is associated with neural failure in rainbow trout\", published in Biology Letters ([https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0132](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0132)).

In this study, we applied an electrophysiological method to investigate the link between brain activity and cardioventilatory function in adult rainbow trout (*Oncorhynchus mykiss*) subjected to a critical thermal maximum (CTmax) protocol. Fish were exposed to 10, 15, 20 and 25 degrees, until ...,