Neuronal Control and Biomechanics of a Hydrodynamic Skeleton

IBN-9511432威廉·克里斯坦要想移动，软体动物必须首先收缩肌肉使自己僵硬，然后收缩相同或其他肌肉来延长、缩短或弯曲。这种暂时的僵硬有效地充当了动物在其上移动的“水合物骨架”。管状器官如章鱼的触须、大象的鼻子或我们自己的舌头和肠道都使用同样类型的水骨骼。控制水合物骨骼的基本原理还不是很清楚，这主要是因为肌肉的排列很复杂，而且很难从单个动物或器官获得所有必要的生理和机械测量。这些研究将使用药用水蛭来研究水生骨骼，因为可以在这种动物身上测量神经系统和肌肉系统的所有相关特性。这个由多学科科学家组成的小组已经建立了一个力学模型，可以对一些行为做出合理的估计，比如缩短和爬行。现在，他们将测量肌肉的动态特性，并将其添加到生物力学模型中，这样就可以解释游泳等更快的行为。完成的模型应该是对水生骨骼的更一般的描述，可以用来更好地了解触须、躯干、舌头和肠道。

IBN-9511432 William Kristan To move, soft-bodied animals must first contract muscles to make themselves stiff, then contract the same or other muscles to lengthen, shorten or bend. This temporary stiffness effectively serves as a "hydroskeleton" on which the animals move. The same kind of hydroskeletons are used by tubular organs such as tentacles on an octopus, the trunk of elephants, or our own tongues and intestines. The principles underlying the control of hydroskeletons is not well-understood, largely because the arrangement of the muscles is complex and because it is very difficult to obtain all the needed physiological and mechanical measurements from a single animal or organ. These studies will use the medicinal leech to study hydroskeletons because all the relevant properties of the nervous system and muscular system can be measured in this animal. This multidisciplinary group of scientists have constructed a model of the mechanics that produces reasonable estimates of some behaviors, such as shortening and crawling. Now they will measure dynamic properties of the muscles and add them to the biomechanical model, so that faster behaviors, such as swimming, can be explained. The completed model should serve as a more general description of hydroskeletons that can be used for a better understanding of tentacles, trunks, tongues and intestines.