Neural Basis of Elementary Behavior in Stick Insects

Bässler, Ulrich

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-68813-3

Cited by 262 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

165

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…C. morosus also moves very slowly, and freezes as a protective mechanism when threatened (Bässler, 1972(Bässler, , 1983Godden, 1974). Similar fixed joint rest angles, perhaps gravity-independent and likely attributable to an equilibrium point of agonist and antagonist passive forces, have also been seen in crustacea (Yox et al, 1982), which suggests that the data presented above were probably not limited to stick insects.…”

Section: Comparison Of C Morosus Data To Those From Other Animalsmentioning

confidence: 55%

Neural Control of Unloaded Leg Posture and of Leg Swing in Stick Insect, Cockroach, and Mouse Differs from That in Larger Animals

Hooper¹,

Guschlbauer²,

Blümel³

et al. 2009

J. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Stick insect (Carausius morosus) leg muscles contract and relax slowly. Control of stick insect leg posture and movement could therefore differ from that in animals with faster muscles. Consistent with this possibility, stick insect legs maintained constant posture without leg motor nerve activity when the animals were rotated in air. That unloaded leg posture was an intrinsic property of the legs was confirmed by showing that isolated legs had constant, gravity-independent postures. Muscle ablation experiments, experiments showing that leg muscle passive forces were large compared with gravitational forces, and experiments showing that, at the rest postures, agonist and antagonist muscles generated equal forces indicated that these postures depended in part on leg muscles. Leg muscle recordings showed that stick insect swing motor neurons fired throughout the entirety of swing. To test whether these results were specific to stick insect, we repeated some of these experiments in cockroach (Periplaneta americana) and mouse. Isolated cockroach legs also had gravityindependent rest positions and mouse swing motor neurons also fired throughout the entirety of swing. These data differ from those in human and horse but not cat. These size-dependent variations in whether legs have constant, gravity-independent postures, in whether swing motor neurons fire throughout the entirety of swing, and calculations of how quickly passive muscle force would slow limb movement as limb size varies suggest that these differences may be caused by scaling. Limb size may thus be as great a determinant as phylogenetic position of unloaded limb motor control strategy.

show abstract

Section: Comparison Of C Morosus Data To Those From Other Animalsmentioning

confidence: 55%

Neural Control of Unloaded Leg Posture and of Leg Swing in Stick Insect, Cockroach, and Mouse Differs from That in Larger Animals

Hooper¹,

Guschlbauer²,

Blümel³

et al. 2009

J. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These movements mimicked the rate and amplitude of FT-joint angle changes that occur during voluntary tibial movements such as searching or walking (Bässler 1983;Cruse and Bartling 1995;Karg et al 1991). Figure 3 shows the response of a VϪ afferent during fCO stimulation with an amplitude of 60°and angular velocities of 120°/s during fCO elongation and 30°/s during fCO relaxation, at a repetition rate of 0.25 Hz.…”

Section: Correlation Of Fco Adaptation With Activity Of Premotor Elemmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Stimulus velocities were in the range of 20 -1,200°/s. This range encompasses movement velocities that are generated by the stick insect leg system during locomotion (Bartling 1993;Bässler 1983). Maximum movement velocities during white noise mechanical stimulation were approximately 2,200°/s, with an amplitude range of 60°, and 1,100°/s over the amplitude range of 30°that was usually applied to the fCO.…”

Section: Mechanical Stimulation Of the Fcomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reduction of the open-loop reflex gain in the stick insect FT-joint control system was previously thought to be primarily mediated by the neuronal network underlying sensorimotor processing (Bässler 1983;Kittmann 1991Kittmann , 1997. However, the activity-related adaptation of fCO afferents and the correlated decrease in activity of premotor interneurons and motoneurons in the FTcontrol network (Fig.…”

Section: Fco Afferent Adaptation and The Ft-control Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Activity-Dependent Sensitivity of Proprioceptive Sensory Neurons in the Stick Insect Femoral Chordotonal Organ

DiCaprio

Wolf

Büschges

2002

Journal of Neurophysiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

schges. Activitydependent sensitivity of proprioceptive sensory neurons in the stick insect femoral chordotonal organ. J Neurophysiol 88: 2387-2398, 2002; 10.1152/jn.00339.2002. Mechanosensory neurons exhibit a wide range of dynamic changes in response, including rapid and slow adaptation. In addition to mechanical factors, electrical processes may also contribute to sensory adaptation. We have investigated adaptation of afferent neurons in the stick insect femoral chordotonal organ (fCO). The fCO contains sensory neurons that respond to position, velocity, and acceleration of the tibia. We describe the influence of random mechanical stimulation of the fCO on the response of fCO afferent neurons. The activity of individual sensory neurons was recorded intracellularly from their axons in the main leg nerve. Most fCO afferents (93%) exhibited a marked decrease in response to trapezoidal stimuli following sustained white noise stimulation (bandwidth ϭ 60 Hz, amplitudes from Ϯ5 to Ϯ30°). Concurrent decreases in the synaptic drive to leg motoneurons and interneurons were also observed. Electrical stimulation of spike activity in individual fCO afferents in the absence of mechanical stimulation also led to a dramatic decrease in response in 15 of 19 afferents tested. This indicated that electrical processes are involved in the regulation of the generator potential or encoding of action potentials and partially responsible for the decreased response of the afferents. Replacing Ca 2ϩ with Ba 2ϩ in the saline surrounding the fCO greatly reduced or blocked the decrease in response elicited by electrically induced activity or mechanical stimulation when compared with control responses. Our results indicate that activity of fCO sensory neurons strongly affects their sensitivity, most likely via Ca 2ϩ -dependent processes.

show abstract

“…In insects, movements and static positions of the tibia relative to the femur are encoded principally by feedback from one sense organ, the femoral chordotonal organ (FCO), which thus plays a key role in feedback control loops (Bässler, 1983;Field and Matheson, 1998). In quiescent animals, the reflex effects generally act as postural stabilizing mechanisms, but in active animals they can reverse in sign (Bässler, 1976(Bässler, , 1986.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional Recovery of Aimed Scratching Movements after a Graded Proprioceptive Manipulation

Page

Matheson²

2009

J. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To demonstrate the role of proprioceptive feedback in aimed limb movements, we induced graded changes in the signals provided by the principal receptor in a leg of a locust. The femoro-tibial chordotonal organ (FCO) of the hindleg monitors extension and flexion movements of the tibia and provides the main source of proprioceptive feedback about tibial kinematics. The FCO apodeme (tendon) was surgically shortened by different amounts to provide a systematic bias to this feedback, and aimed scratching movements were analyzed over the week after surgery. Shortening the apodeme led to increased firing of sensory neurons of the FCO at flexed joint angles and is thus functionally similar to flexing the tibia. Immediately after surgery, limb movements shifted dorsally and posteriorly, driven by overextension of the femoro-tibial joint and changes at other joints of the limb. The extent of tibial overextension reflected the extent of apodeme shortening. Overextension would tend to renormalize the FCO feedback signal and can be explained by known interjoint reflex pathways. Our data demonstrate that proprioceptive feedback provides a graded signal that is used to control these aimed limb movements. Over the course of 7 d after surgery, there was a functional recovery in aiming as the overall patterns of movement returned toward control values driven by reciprocal compensatory changes at two joints. The sensory to motor pathways are monosynaptic and oligosynaptic in this system, thus providing us with a powerful opportunity to investigate further the sensorimotor transformations and plasticity of aimed limb movements.

show abstract

Neural Basis of Elementary Behavior in Stick Insects

Cited by 262 publications

References 0 publications

Neural Control of Unloaded Leg Posture and of Leg Swing in Stick Insect, Cockroach, and Mouse Differs from That in Larger Animals

Neural Control of Unloaded Leg Posture and of Leg Swing in Stick Insect, Cockroach, and Mouse Differs from That in Larger Animals

Activity-Dependent Sensitivity of Proprioceptive Sensory Neurons in the Stick Insect Femoral Chordotonal Organ

Functional Recovery of Aimed Scratching Movements after a Graded Proprioceptive Manipulation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About