Responses of the goldfish head lateral line to moving objects

Abstract

We investigated how fibers in the anterior lateral line nerve of goldfish, Carassius auratus, respond to water motions generated by an object that was moved alongside the fish. Motion direction was from anterior to posterior or opposite, object diameter was between 0.1 and 4 cm and the distance between object and fish varied between 1 and 6 cm. Fibers exhibited monophasic responses characterized by a transient increase in discharge rate, biphasic responses consisting of an increase followed by a decrease in discharge rate or vice versa, or triphasic responses characterized by a rate increase followed by a decrease and again an increase or by the inverse pattern. In two-thirds of the fibers response patterns depended on object motion direction. Of these, about 60% responded to a reversal of motion direction with an inversion of the response pattern. Our results differ from previous data obtained from posterior lateral line nerve fibers in the relative proportions of the observed response patterns, and by a much smaller proportion of fibers that exhibited a direction-dependent response. These differences can be explained by the fact that the spatial orientations of the neuromasts on the head are more heterogenuous than on the trunk.

Development of the lateral line system in juvenile Siberian sturgeon (<I>Acipenser baerii</I>)

“…侧线系统是皮肤衍生的感觉器官, 为鱼类和水 生两栖类所特有, 在鱼类的摄食、御敌、生殖、洄 游等行为中发挥重要作用 (Baker & Bronner-Fraser, 2001; Goulet et al, 2008;Mogdans & Geisen, 2009;Wilkens & Hofmann, 2007)。它由机械感受器和电感 受器组成。机械感受器能感受水流、水压的变化； 电感受器能检测周边微弱电场变化 (Cheng et al, 1995;Northcutt, 1992;Song et al, 1995)。不同于机械 感受器, 电感受器在硬骨鱼类中经历了二次进化, 如部分辐鳍亚纲鱼类(多鳍鱼和鲟鳇鱼等)存在与软 骨鱼类相似的壶腹型电感受器；而新鳍亚纲中的雀 鳝目、 弓鳍鱼目电感受器缺失, 仅存在机械感受器。 在部分现代真骨鱼(骨舌鱼类和个别鲶鱼等)中又出 现了结节状电感受器, 但电感受器的进化历程, 尚 未完全了解 (Gibbs, 2004;O'Neill et al, 2007)。 鲟鱼是软骨硬鳞下纲中现存的唯一一目, 素有…”

Medullary lateral line units of rudd, Scardinius erythrophthalmus, are sensitive to Kármán vortex streets

“…Given that none of our units responded to acoustic or vestibular stimuli, we rule out the first two possibilities. In all fish species studied so far, medullary units showed relative to primary lateral line afferents on average lower spontaneous and evoked rates spike rates (Münz 1985;Bleckmann and Zelick 1993;Mogdans et al 1997;Coombs et al 1998;Mohr and Bleckmann 1998;Hofmann et al 2005;Chagnaud et al 2008a, b;Mogdans and Geisen 2009;Ali et al 2010;Liao 2014), greater degrees of adaptation, greater heterogeneity in response characteristics, and evidence for inhibitory/excitatory interactions (Montgomery et al 1996;Coombs et al 1998). Median spike rate of our units was 1.17 S/s, i.e., much lower than in most primary afferents.…”

“…Median spike rate of our units was 1.17 S/s, i.e., much lower than in most primary afferents. Primary lateral line afferents, determined for several fish species, reached maximum spike rates of 35-102 S/s (Münz 1985;Bleckmann and Zelick 1993;Mogdans et al 1997;Mohr and Bleckmann 1998;Hofmann et al 2005;Chagnaud et al 2008a, b;Mogdans and Geisen 2009;Liao 2014), and the maximum spike rate we obtained was 13.1 S/s, i.e., again much lower than in primary afferents. Furthermore, 6 % of our units decreased their neuronal activity if the fish was exposed to vortices shed by a 3-cm cylinder.…”

Responses of Medullary Lateral Line Units of the Goldfish,Carassius auratus, to Amplitude-Modulated Sinusoidal Wave Stimuli

“…Previous studies have shown that primary afferent nerve fibers are spontaneously active with average rates ranging from about 20 spikes/s [31], to 30 and 35 spikes/s [32][33][34]. Afferent fibres show a sustained and phase locked response to constant-amplitude sinusoidal water motions [5,12], [15, Table 1].…”