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My lab:
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One of the great strengths of Neuroethology is the ability to derive evolutionary concepts from the study of the neural control of behavior in different species. This symposium on the " Evolution of brains and behavior" covered examples spanning molluscs, voles, moles and primates.
Organizer Paul Katz kicked the symposium of with his great study on swimming snails. Tritonia swim by flexing dorso-ventrally and Melibe swim laterally like fish (see videos). Similar to many other gastropod systems, serotonin has a strong modulatory effect on the properties and synaptic strenghts within the swimming CPG of Tritonia. This intrinsic neuromodulation by serotonin is state-dependent. Both behaviors are controlled by the same homologous neurons. Do these homologous swim-interneurons perform the same functions in animals that swim by flexing the body differently? It turns out that the CPG organization is fundamentally different, in that electrical coupling and synaptic inhibition are exactly turned by 90° between both species, meaning that dorsoventral swimmers synchronize their lateral sides, whereas lateral swimmers synchronize their dorsoventral sides with electrical coupling. Serotonergic modulation of the CPGs is also different in both species.
Studying the mollusk clade and screening it for the type of swimming other snails, Paul concluded that there had been several independent evolutionary origins of swimming (Homoplasy).


Pic from the Friday Harbor Meeting:
Posted on Friday 27 July 2007 - 20:03:02 comment: 0
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