Sensory control mechanisms of the uropod equilibrium reflex during walking in the crayfish Procambarus clarkii

1996 ◽  
Vol 199 (3) ◽  
pp. 521-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Murayama ◽  
M Takahata

The temporal characteristics of statocyst and leg proprioceptive inputs to the uropod motor system were investigated in crayfish using behavioural and electromyographic analyses to elucidate their functional roles in the control of the uropod steering response under natural conditions. When the animal, which was suspended in the air without a footboard, was actively extending its abdomen, prolonged stimulation of the statocysts by body rolling elicited a maintained asymmetrical configuration of the bilateral uropods. Prolonged stimulation of the walking legs by footboard tilting with the animal body held in the upright position elicited a transient uropod response. When the treadmill was tilted while the animal was walking on it in the upright position, the uropods showed the same transient response. However, when the animal body was rolled, together with the treadmill, while the animal was walking on it, the uropods showed a transient response which was reversed in direction compared with that observed during body rolling without a footboard. This transient response was abolished by the removal of the statoliths. The results show that the statocysts and leg proprioceptors exert sustained and transient control effects, respectively, on the uropod motor system during walking. It is also suggested that the uropod response to body rolling during walking is controlled primarily by leg proprioceptor signals which result from statocyst-induced changes in the leg position.

1981 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
CHARLES H. PAGE

Postural extensions of the abdomen of the crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, could be evoked by mechanical stimulation of a single thoracic leg. Movement of a single leg joint was sufficient to initiate an extension response. Vigorous abdominal extensions were initiated either by depression of the whole leg (WLD) or by flexion of the mero-carpal joint (MCF). Weaker extension responses were obtained by depression of the thoracic-coxal and coxo-basal joints. Similar stimulation of the chelipeds did not elicit an abdominal extension response. Single-frame analysis of motion pictures of crayfish responding to WLD or MCF stimulation of a 2nd thoracic leg showed that the responses evoked by the two different stimulus situations were nearly identical. They differed principally in the responses of the leg located contralateral to the stimulated leg. Movements of most of the cephalic, thoracic and abdominal appendages accompanied the abdominal extension response. Only the eyes remained stationary throughout the response. The mean values of the latencies for the initiation of appendage movement ranged from 125 to 204 ma; abdominal movement had a mean latency of about 220 ms. The abdominal extension reflex resulted from the activity of the tonic superficial extensor muscles. The deep phasic extensor muscles were silent during the response. The mean latencies for the initiation of superficial extensor muscle activity by WLD and MCF stimulation were 53·7 and 50·0 ms respectively.


1995 ◽  
Vol 268 (6) ◽  
pp. R1484-R1490 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Sarel ◽  
E. P. Widmaier

The hypothesis that the stimulatory action of free fatty acids (FFA) in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis occurs in part at the adrenal cortex was evaluated. Pathophysiological concentrations of oleic and linoleic acids, but not stearic or caprylic acid, stimulated steroidogenesis from cultured rat adrenocortical cells (concentrations eliciting 50% of maximal responses, approximately 60 and 120 microM, respectively), with a latency of 90 min. Maximal stimulation of steroidogenesis by both acids was < 50% of that produced by adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and was blocked by cycloheximide. The maximal steroidogenic response to ACTH was inhibited approximately 50% by oleic acid. The actions of oleic and linoleic acids were not associated with an increase in adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) secretion but appeared to require intracellular oxidation. None of the lipids influenced cell viability or corticosterone radioimmunoassay. The latency of the steroidogenic response, the putative requirement for intracellular oxidation, and the apparent lack of involvement of cAMP suggest a mechanism of action of FFA distinct from that of ACTH, yet still requiring protein synthesis. It is concluded that the modulation of steroidogenesis by these abundant naturally occurring lipids may be an important component of the control mechanisms within the HPA pathway in disorders of lipid homeostasis (e.g., obesity, starvation, or diabetes).


1994 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 1239-1245 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Eljamal ◽  
L. B. Wong ◽  
D. B. Yeates

We questioned whether the prolonged stimulation of ciliary beat frequency (CBF) to a short exposure of low-dose capsaicin (Wong et al. J. Appl. Physiol. 68: 257–2580, 1990) could be due to the activation of indirect pathways involving neural reflexes initiated independently in the bronchi and alveoli. Tracheal CBF (CBFtr) was measured temporally in anesthetized groups of 10 dogs by means of heterodyne-mode correlation analysis laser light scattering. To elucidate the site of the afferent neural stimulation and the efferent mediators affecting the ciliated epithelium, capsaicin (3 nM) aerosol was delivered for 4 min, either predominantly to the bronchi or to the alveolar regions, with use of pulsed aerosol techniques. This resulted in 13 pg of bronchial (85%) and 10 pg of alveolar (96%) capsaicin deposited, which caused marked stimulation of CBFtr with maxima at 7 and 35 min, respectively. Prior administration of aerosolized indomethacin to the bronchi or aerosolized cromolyn to the alveoli inhibited the bronchial and alveolar responses, respectively. Prior administration of aerosolized hexamethonium to the tracheal lumen blocked the stimulatory CBFtr responses from both capsaicin challenges. Ipratropium or propranolol aerosols delivered to the tracheal lumen also inhibited these responses. It is proposed that these pathways comprise one set of sensitive mechanisms to ensure a prolonged stimulation of CBF to effect the removal of secretions and the irritant from the lungs.


Author(s):  
Paolo Solari ◽  
Giorgia Sollai ◽  
Francesco Palmas ◽  
Andrea Sabatini ◽  
Roberto Crnjar

The integration of sensory information with adequate motor outputs is critical for animal survival. Here, we present an innovative technique based on a non-invasive closed-circuit device consisting of a perfusion/stimulation chamber chronically applied on a single leg of the crayfish Procambarus clarkii. Using this technique, we focally stimulated the leg inside the chamber and studied the leg-dependent sensory-motor integration involving other sensory appendages, such as antennules and maxillipeds, which remain unstimulated outside the chamber. Results show that the stimulation of a single leg with chemicals, such as disaccharides, is sufficient to trigger a complex search behaviour involving locomotion coupled with the reflex activation of antennules and maxillipeds. This technique can be easily adapted to other decapods and/or other sensory appendages. Thus, it has opened possibilities for studying sensory-motor integration evoked by leg stimulation in whole aquatic animals under natural conditions to supplement, with a direct approach, current ablation/silencing techniques.


2000 ◽  
Vol 203 (23) ◽  
pp. 3595-3602 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Aonuma ◽  
T. Nagayama ◽  
M. Takahata

A characteristic physiological property of the neuromuscular junction between giant motor neurones (MoGs) and fast flexor muscles in crayfish is synaptic depression, in which repetitive electrical stimulation of the MoG results in a progressive decrease in excitatory junction potential (EJP) amplitude in flexor muscle fibres. Previous studies have demonstrated that l-arginine (l-Arg) modulates neuromuscular transmission. Since l-Arg is a precursor of nitric oxide (NO), we examined the possibility that NO may be involved in modulating neuromuscular transmission from MoGs to abdominal fast flexor muscles. The effect of a NO-generating compound, NOC7, was similar to that of l-Arg, reversibly decreasing the EJP amplitude mediated by the MoG. While NOC7 reduced the amplitude of the EJP, it induced no significant change in synaptic depression. In contrast, a scavenger of free radical NO, carboxy-PTIO, and an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, l-NAME, reversibly increased the EJP amplitude mediated by MoGs. Synaptic depression mediated by repetitive stimulation of MoGs at 1 Hz was partially blocked by bath application of l-NAME. Bath application of a NO scavenger, a NOS inhibitor and NO-generating compounds had no significant effects on the depolarisation of the muscle fibres evoked by local application of l-glutamate. The opposing effects on EJP amplitude of NOC7 and of carboxy-PTIO and l-NAME suggest that endogenous NO presynaptically modulates neuromuscular transmission and that it could play a prominent role at nerve terminals in eliciting MoG-mediated synaptic depression in the crayfish Procambarus clarkii.


2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 675-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen-Chyi Liu ◽  
Jens Herberholz

Crayfish ( Procambarus clarkii ) have bilateral pairs of giant interneurons that control rapid escape movements in response to predatory threats. The medial giant neurons (MGs) can be made to fire an action potential by visual or tactile stimuli directed to the front of the animal and this leads to an escape tail-flip that thrusts the animal directly backward. The lateral giant neurons (LGs) can be made to fire an action potential by strong tactile stimuli directed to the rear of the animal, and this produces flexions of the abdomen that propel the crayfish upward and forward. These observations have led to the notion that the receptive fields of the giant neurons are locally restricted and do not overlap with each other. Using extra- and intracellular electrophysiology in whole animal preparations of juvenile crayfish, we found that the receptive fields of the LGs are far more extensive than previously assumed. The LGs receive excitatory inputs from descending interneurons originating in the brain; these interneurons can be activated by stimulation of the antenna II nerve or the protocerebral tract. In our experiments, descending inputs alone could not cause action potentials in the LGs, but when paired with excitatory postsynaptic potentials elicited by stimulation of tail afferents, the inputs summed to yield firing. Thus the LG escape neurons integrate sensory information received through both rostral and caudal receptive fields, and excitatory inputs that are activated rostrally can bring the LGs' membrane potential closer to threshold. This enhances the animal's sensitivity to an approaching predator, a finding that may generalize to other species with similarly organized escape systems.


2006 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 1770-1785 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Jong Hung ◽  
Yi-Ting Wang ◽  
Wen-Chang Chang

ABSTRACT We previous reported that Sp1 recruits c-Jun to the promoter of the 12(S)-lipoxygenase gene in 12-myristate 13-acetate-treated cells. We now show that Sp1 that recruited HDAC1 to the Sp1/cJun complex was constitutively acetylated when cells were exposed to phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) (3 h). Prolonged stimulation of the cells with PMA (9 h), however, caused the dissociation of histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) and the deacetylation of Sp1, with the latter being able to recruit p300 that in turn caused the acetylation and dissociation of histone 3, thus enhancing the expression of 12(S)-lipoxygenase. We also overexpressed an Sp1 mutant (K703/A, lacking acetylation sites) in the cell and found that cells recruited more p300 and expressed more 12(S)-lipoxygenase. Taken together, our results indicated that Sp1 recruits HDAC1 together with c-Jun to the gene promoter, followed by deacetylation of Sp1 upon PMA treatment. p300 is then recruited to the gene promoter through the interaction with deacetylated Sp1 to acetylate histone 3, leading to the enhancement of the expression of 12(S)-lipoxygenase.


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