Central Processing of Electrosensory Information

有一些鱼类被称为“弱电”鱼，因为它们会从电子器官中释放出微小的电流。它们使用皮肤中的电感受器来检测周围电场的变化，这有点像回声定位行为。他们大脑的一个完整部分被称为电感觉叶(ELL)，来自电感受器的神经信号与来自大脑其他部分的神经信号相结合，包括关于身体位置的信息，关于电子器官放电定时的命令，以及关于电感觉处理的其他阶段的信息。感觉输入的调节在神经细胞之间接触的有效性的变化中得到了证明，这种变化被称为突触可塑性。这项工作使用单个神经细胞的电生理学和解剖追踪来确定ELL内的细胞如何对电感觉和中枢输入做出反应，并确定ELL的基本解剖回路。这个模型系统不是作为一个“简单的”系统有用的，而是一个可能有助于理解脊椎动物中枢神经系统中将感觉与行为联系起来的感觉-运动整合的真正复杂性的模型系统。使用这种不同寻常的非人类感觉将提供关于中央大脑结构如何改变感觉信息流，感觉信息如何被指令运动活动调制，以及突触可塑性如何影响感觉处理和网络功能的见解。

There are fish species known as "weakly electric" fish, because they emit a small discharge from an electric organ. They use electroreceptor organs in the skin to detect changes in the electric field that surrounds them, somewhat like echolocation behavior. One whole part of their brain is called the electrosensory lobe (ELL), where the nerve signals from electroreceptors are integrated with nerve signals from other parts of the brain, including information about body position, about the commands for timing of the electric organ discharge, and about other stages of electrosensory processing. Modulation of sensory input has been demonstrated here in the changes in effectiveness of the contacts between nerve cells, known as synaptic plasticity. This work uses electrophysiology and anatomical tracing of the processes of single nerve cells to determine how cells within ELL respond to electrosensory and central inputs, and to determine the basic anatomical circuitry of ELL. This model system is useful not as a "simple" one, but as one which may help to understand the real complexities of sensorimotor integration linking sensation to behavior in the vertebrate central nervous system. Using this unusual non-human sense will provide insights about how central brain structures modify the flow of sensory information, how sensory information is modulated by commanded motor activity, and how synaptic plasticity affects functions of sensory processing and network functions.