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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 11, 2006, 26(41):10542-10547; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2221-06.2006

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
A Behavioral Role for Feature Detection by Sensory Bursts

Gary Marsat and Gerald S. Pollack

Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1

Correspondence should be addressed to Gerald Pollack, Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Doctor Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1. Email: gerald.pollack{at}mcgill.ca

Brief episodes of high-frequency firing of sensory neurons, or bursts, occur in many systems, including mammalian auditory and visual systems, and are believed to signal the occurrence of particularly important stimulus features, i.e., to function as feature detectors. However, the behavioral relevance of sensory bursts has not been established in any system. Here, we show that bursts in an identified auditory interneuron of crickets reliably signal salient stimulus features and reliably predict behavioral responses. Our results thus demonstrate the close link between sensory bursts and behavior.

Key words: sensory coding; neuroethology; cricket; behavior; auditory; predator detection

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Received May 25, 2006; revised Aug. 17, 2006; accepted Sept. 7, 2006.

Correspondence should be addressed to Gerald Pollack, Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Doctor Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1. Email: gerald.pollack{at}mcgill.ca

This article has been cited by other articles:

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