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Camargo AS, Caputi AA, Aguilera PA. The sensory effects of light on the electric organ discharge rate of Gymnotus omarorum. J Exp Biol 2023; 226:jeb245489. [PMID: 37408509 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.245489] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2023] [Accepted: 06/21/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023]
Abstract
Gymnotiformes are nocturnal fishes inhabiting the root mats of floating plants. They use their electric organ discharge (EOD) to explore the environment and to communicate. Here, we show and describe tonic and phasic sensory-electromotor responses to light distinct from indirect effects depending on the light-induced endogenous circadian rhythm. In the dark, principally during the night, inter-EOD interval histograms are bimodal: the main peak corresponds to the basal rate and a secondary peak corresponds to high-frequency bouts. Light causes a twofold tonic but opposing effect on the EOD histogram: (i) decreasing the main mode and (ii) blocking the high-frequency bouts and consequently increasing the main peak at the expense of removal of the secondary one. Additionally, light evokes phasic responses whose amplitude increases with intensity but whose slow time course and poor adaptation differentiate from the so-called novelty responses evoked by abrupt changes in sensory stimuli of other modalities. We confirmed that Gymnotus omarorum tends to escape from light, suggesting that these phasic responses are probably part of a global 'light-avoidance response'. We interpret the data within an ecological context. Fish rest under the shade of aquatic plants during the day and light spots due to the sun's relative movement alert the fish to hide in shady zones to avoid macroptic predators and facilitate tracking the movement of floating plant islands by wind and/or water currents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana S Camargo
- Unidad de Neurociencias Integrativas y Computacionales, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, MEC, Av.Italia 3318, CP 11600, Montevideo, Uruguay
| | - Angel A Caputi
- Unidad de Neurociencias Integrativas y Computacionales, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, MEC, Av.Italia 3318, CP 11600, Montevideo, Uruguay
| | - Pedro A Aguilera
- Unidad de Neurociencias Integrativas y Computacionales, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, MEC, Av.Italia 3318, CP 11600, Montevideo, Uruguay
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Kraemer A, Baxter C, Hendrix A, Carr CE. Development of auditory sensitivity in the barn owl. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2017; 203:843-853. [PMID: 28689296 DOI: 10.1007/s00359-017-1197-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2017] [Revised: 06/08/2017] [Accepted: 06/29/2017] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
Abstract
Adult barn owl hearing is acute, but development of this sense is not well understood. We, therefore, measured auditory brainstem responses in barn owls from before the onset of hearing (posthatch day 2, or P2) to adulthood (P69). The first consistent responses were detected at P4 for 1 and 2 kHz, followed by responses to 0.5 and 4 kHz at P9, and 5 kHz at P13. Sensitivity to higher frequencies increased with age, with responses to 12 kHz appearing about 2 months after hatching, once the facial ruff was mature. Therefore, these altricial birds achieve their sensitivity to sound during a prolonged period of development, which coincides with maturation of the skull and facial ruff (Haresign and Moiseff in Auk 105:699-705, 1988).
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Kraemer
- Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences Program, Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
| | - Caitlin Baxter
- College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA
| | - Alayna Hendrix
- Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA
| | - Catherine E Carr
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland College, Park, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
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Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to animals that are commonly used for research. It presents information on basic care topics such as biology, behavior, housing, feeding, sexing, and breeding of these animals. The chapter provides some insight into the reasons why these animals are used in research. It also gives an overview of techniques that can be utilized to collect blood or to administer drugs or medicine. Each section concludes with a brief description of how to recognize abnormal signs, in addition to lists of various diseases.
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Selmi F, Braive R, Beaudoin G, Sagnes I, Kuszelewicz R, Barbay S. Temporal summation in a neuromimetic micropillar laser. OPTICS LETTERS 2015; 40:5690-5693. [PMID: 26625083 DOI: 10.1364/ol.40.005690] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Neuromimetic systems are systems mimicking the functionalities or architecture of biological neurons and may present an alternative path for efficient computing and information processing. We demonstrate here experimentally temporal summation in a neuromimetic micropillar laser with an integrated saturable absorber. Temporal summation is the property of neurons to integrate delayed input stimuli and to respond by an all-or-none kind of response if the inputs arrive in a sufficiently small time window. Our system alone may act as a fast optical coincidence detector and paves the way to fast photonic spike-processing networks.
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Park PKJ, Ryu H, Lee JH, Shin CW, Lee KB, Woo J, Kim JS, Kang BC, Liu SC, Delbruck T. Fast neuromorphic sound localization for binaural hearing aids. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY SOCIETY. ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2015; 2013:5275-8. [PMID: 24110926 DOI: 10.1109/embc.2013.6610739] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
We report on the neuromorphic sound localization circuit which can enhance the perceptual sensation in a hearing aid system. All elements are simple leaky integrate-and-fire neuron circuits with different parameters optimized to suppress the impacts of synaptic circuit noises. The detection range and resolution of the proposed neuromorphic circuit are 500 us and 5 us, respectively. Our results show that, the proposed technique can localize a sound pulse with extremely narrow duration (∼ 1 ms) resulting in real-time response.
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Singheiser M, Ferger R, von Campenhausen M, Wagner H. Adaptation in the auditory midbrain of the barn owl (Tyto alba) induced by tonal double stimulation. Eur J Neurosci 2012; 35:445-56. [PMID: 22288481 DOI: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2011.07967.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
During hunting, the barn owl typically listens to several successive sounds as generated, for example, by rustling mice. As auditory cells exhibit adaptive coding, the earlier stimuli may influence the detection of the later stimuli. This situation was mimicked with two double-stimulus paradigms, and adaptation was investigated in neurons of the barn owl's central nucleus of the inferior colliculus. Each double-stimulus paradigm consisted of a first or reference stimulus and a second stimulus (probe). In one paradigm (second level tuning), the probe level was varied, whereas in the other paradigm (inter-stimulus interval tuning), the stimulus interval between the first and second stimulus was changed systematically. Neurons were stimulated with monaural pure tones at the best frequency, while the response was recorded extracellularly. The responses to the probe were significantly reduced when the reference stimulus and probe had the same level and the inter-stimulus interval was short. This indicated response adaptation, which could be compensated for by an increase of the probe level of 5-7 dB over the reference level, if the latter was in the lower half of the dynamic range of a neuron's rate-level function. Recovery from adaptation could be best fitted with a double exponential showing a fast (1.25 ms) and a slow (800 ms) component. These results suggest that neurons in the auditory system show dynamic coding properties to tonal double stimulation that might be relevant for faithful upstream signal propagation. Furthermore, the overall stimulus level of the masker also seems to affect the recovery capabilities of auditory neurons.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Singheiser
- Department of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Mies-van-der-Rohe-Strasse 15, D-52074 Aachen, Germany
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Wagner H, Kettler L, Orlowski J, Tellers P. Neuroethology of prey capture in the barn owl (Tyto alba L.). ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2012; 107:51-61. [PMID: 22510644 DOI: 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2012.03.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2012] [Revised: 03/12/2012] [Accepted: 03/30/2012] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Barn owls are a model system for studying prey capture. These animals can catch mice by hearing alone, but use vision whenever light conditions allow this. The silent flight, the frontally oriented eyes, and the facial ruffs are specializations that evolved to optimize prey capture. The auditory system is characterized by high absolute sensitivity, a use of interaural time difference for azimuthal sound-localization over almost the total hearing range up to at least 9 kHz, and the use of interaural level difference for elevational sound localization in the upper frequency range. Response latencies towards auditory targets were shortened by covert attention, while overt attention helped to orient towards salient visual objects. However, only 20% of the fixation movements could be explained by the saliency of the fixated objects, suggesting a top-down control of attention. In a visual-search experiment the birds turned earlier and more often towards and spent more time at salient objects. The visual system also exhibits high absolute sensitivity, while the spatial resolution is not particularly high. Last but not least, head movements may be classified as fixations, translations, and rotations combined with translations. These motion primitives may be combined to complex head-movement patterns. With the expected easy availability of genetic techniques for specialists in the near future and the possibility to apply the findings in biomimetic devices prey capture in barn owls will remain an exciting field in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hermann Wagner
- Department of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Mies-van-der-Rohe-Strasse 15, D-52074 Aachen, Germany.
| | - Lutz Kettler
- Department of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Mies-van-der-Rohe-Strasse 15, D-52074 Aachen, Germany.
| | - Julius Orlowski
- Department of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Mies-van-der-Rohe-Strasse 15, D-52074 Aachen, Germany.
| | - Philipp Tellers
- Department of Zoology, RWTH Aachen University, Mies-van-der-Rohe-Strasse 15, D-52074 Aachen, Germany.
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Catania KC. Tactile sensing in specialized predators - from behavior to the brain. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2011; 22:251-8. [PMID: 22209039 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2011.11.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/08/2011] [Revised: 11/28/2011] [Accepted: 11/28/2011] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
A number of predators depend heavily on tactile cues for pursuing and capturing prey. Here I describe and discuss the whiskers of carnivorous grasshopper mice and shrews, the sensory rays of the star-nosed mole, and the tactile appendages of the tentacled snake. These diverse sensors are accompanied by remarkable corresponding specializations in the central nervous system. But understanding their function and the significance of the central nervous system correlates requires the careful documentation of behavior inherent to a neuroethological approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kenneth C Catania
- Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, United States.
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Abstract
Laboratory research using songbirds as a model system for investigating basic questions of neurobiological function has expanded rapidly and recently, with approximately 120 laboratories working with songbirds worldwide. In the United States alone, of the approximately 80 such laboratories nearly a third have been established in the past 10 years. Yet many animal facilities are not outfitted to manage these animals, and as a consequence laboratories often use alternative housing arrangements established by institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs). These committees invariably differ in their expertise level with birds and thus guidelines also vary considerably from one institution to another. In this article I address a number of factors to consider for effective oversight of research involving songbirds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marc F Schmidt
- Department of Biology, 312 Leidy Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, 433 South University Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6018, USA.
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