Neural Circuitry for Polarized-Light Perception

偏振光感知的神经电路

• 批准号: 8719315
• 负责人: Nicholas Strausfeld
• 金额: $ 19.88万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1988
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1988-05-01 至 1992-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8719315&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Neural; Circuitry; Polarized; Light; Perception

Dr. Nicholas Strausfeld is an extremely gifted scientist who has been gathering a volume of information on the organization of the insect brain. His previous work has focused on the neuroanatomy and functional organization of the brain and thoracic nervous system of dipterous insects, in particular the blowfly. In his new research program he shall exploit a cardinal feature of arthropod brains: namely, the presence of a manageable number of large nerve cells with characteristic forms, which are readily identifiable in all individuals of a species and which can be unambiguously related to specific motor neuron pools innervating identified muscles used in a specified locomotor function. The ultimate goal of this new line of research is to resolve the functional organization of neurons that mediate polarized-light orientation. To this end the project is restricted to the analysis of clearly defined and neuroanatomically identifiable sensory systems leading to identified motor neurons and muscles. The physiological studies are specifically designed to test the activities of premotor descending neurons in response to polarized light in the context of other visual and mechanical cues, such as would normally be encountered. The research will test current hypotheses concerning polarized-light-sensitive networks. This work is important because it seeks to functionally detail a complete neuronal circuit from sensory input to muscle movement, a circuit in which the anatomy of the neurons has already been beautifully described.

尼古拉斯·施特劳斯菲尔德博士是一位极具天赋的科学家，他一直在收集大量关于昆虫大脑组织的信息。他之前的工作集中在双翅目昆虫，特别是苍蝇的大脑和胸部神经系统的神经解剖学和功能组织上。在他的新研究计划中，他将利用节肢动物大脑的一个基本特征：即存在数量可管理的具有特征形式的大型神经细胞，这些神经细胞在一个物种的所有个体中都很容易识别，并且可以毫不含糊地与特定的运动神经元池相关，这些运动神经元池支配着用于特定运动功能的已识别肌肉。这一新的研究路线的最终目标是解决调节偏振光定向的神经元的功能组织。为此，该项目仅限于对明确定义的和神经解剖学上可识别的感觉系统进行分析，从而确定运动神经元和肌肉。这些生理学研究是专门设计来测试在其他视觉和机械提示的情况下，运动前下行神经元对偏振光的反应的活动，例如通常会遇到的。这项研究将测试目前关于偏振光敏感网络的假设。这项工作很重要，因为它寻求从感觉输入到肌肉运动的完整神经元电路的功能细节，其中神经元的解剖已经被完美地描述过。