Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2015
Abstract
Some behaviors occur in obligatory sequence, such as reaching before grasping an object. Can the earlier behavior serve to prepare the musculature for the later behavior? If it does, what is the underlying neural mechanism of the preparation? To address this question, we examined two feeding behaviors in the marine mollusk Aplysia californica, one of which must precede the second: biting and swallowing. Biting is an attempt to grasp food. When that attempt is successful, the animal immediately switches to swallowing to ingest food. The main muscle responsible for pulling food into the buccal cavity during swallowing is the I3 muscle, whose motor neurons B6, B9, and B3 have been previously identified. By performing recordings from these neurons in vivo in intact, behaving animals or in vitro in a suspended buccal mass preparation, we demonstrated that the frequencies and durations of these motor neurons increased from biting to swallowing. Using the physiological patterns of activation to drive these neurons intracellularly, we further demonstrated that activating them using biting-like frequencies and durations, either alone or in combination, generated little or no force in the I3 muscle. When biting-like patterns preceded swallowing-like patterns, however, the forces during the subsequent swallowing-like patterns were significantly enhanced. Sequences of swallowing-like patterns, either with these neurons alone or in combination, further enhanced forces in the I3 muscle. These results suggest a novel mechanism for enhancing force production in a muscle, and may be relevant to understanding motor control in vertebrates.
Keywords
Aplysia, behavioral sequence, feeding, motor neuron, multifunctionality, muscle
Language
English
Publication Title
Journal of Neuroscience
Grant
R01NS047073
Rights
© 2015 The Author(s). This is an Open Access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Yu X, Kelley TJ, Chiel HJ, Burgess JD. Communication-Microelectrode Detection of Cholesterol Efflux from the Human Buccel Mucosa. J Electrochem Soc. 2016;163(8):B453-B455. doi: 10.1149/2.1001608jes. Epub 2016 Jun 7. PMID: 27546897; PMCID: PMC4988675.
Manuscript Version
Final Publisher Version