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Volume 16, Number 18, Issue of September 15, 1996 pp. 5844-5853
Copyright ©1996 Society for Neuroscience

Correspondence of Escape-Turning Behavior with Activity of Descending Mechanosensory Interneurons in the Cockroach, Periplaneta americana

Received Feb. 21, 1996; revised June 21, 1996; accepted June 25, 1996.

Shuping Ye and Christopher M. Comer

Neuroscience Group, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607

Two bilaterally paired mechanosensory neurons that respond to antennal touch stimulation recently have been described in the cockroach Periplaneta americana. Here chronic recordings were used to describe the activity of these interneurons in relation to behavior. Parallel intra/extracellular recording experiments showed that both pairs of previously identified descending mechanosensory interneurons (DMIs) were activated after touch stimulation of the antennae and before initiation of escape. On a trial-by-trial basis, the bilateral pattern of their activity was correlated with sensory input and behavior: when one antenna was touched, the contralateral DMI axons displayed impulses earlier and in greater numbers than their ipsilateral homologs; turns were made toward the side with greater DMI activity, i.e., away from the touched antenna. One parameter of DMI activity (the bilateral difference in number of DMI impulses) was correlated with the angular amplitude of turning. In the absence of touch stimulation, unilateral electrical stimulation of a cervical connective via the chronic electrodes produced turning movements similar to natural escape turning and of appropriate directionality. These results support the hypothesis that neural activity in DMIs is involved in the control of antennal touch-evoked escape, and they provide a basis for a model of DMI specification of the direction of escape turning.

Key words: antennae; chronic recording; cockroach; escape behavior; sensory coding; touch

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Gebhardt and H.-W. Honegger Physiological characterisation of antennal mechanosensory descending interneurons in an insect (Gryllus bimaculatus, Gryllus campestris) brain J. Exp. Biol., January 7, 2001; 204(13): 2265 - 2275. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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