Mechanoreception in Marine Copepods: Detecting Complex Fluid Signals

海洋桡足类的机械感受：检测复杂的流体信号

• 批准号: 0514593
• 负责人: David Fields
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-11-18 至 2009-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0514593&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mechanoreception; Marine; Copepods; Detecting; Complex

At the microscopic scale, we do not yet have a good understanding of how biological mechanical sensory organs work. Small aquatic animals make very fast responses to local water movements, which can produce whole-animal behavior including feeding, reproductive movements, or escape from predators within milliseconds. Despite the need for very short response latency, each of these different behaviors requires sufficient information on identity and localization of the source of signals to produce an ecologically appropriate response. This project uses the tiny marine crustaceans called copepods to analyze how their microscopic hairlike sensors called setae are stimulated by small water motions, and how the nervous system controls their extremely rapid specific behavioral responses. Coupling modern high-speed video imaging technology with neurophysiological recording and novel micromechanical stimulation techniques, experiments examine how particular kinds of hydrodynamic fluid disturbance drive movements of the setae, and how neural signals from the setae are encoded to initiate appropriate behavioral responses. Results from this study will have an impact beyond sensory neurobiology to engineering of microsensor technology and robotics, and also to biological oceanography because copepods are a very important component of many marine ecosystems. The project has career and educational impacts by launching a new investigator's research program, and by providing cross-disciplinary student training involving computational, engineering, biological and behavioral approaches to an integrative question.

在微观范围内，我们尚不对生物机械感觉器官的工作方式有很好的了解。小型水生动物对局部水运动的反应非常快，这可以产生全动物行为，包括喂食，生殖运动或逃离毫秒内的捕食者。 尽管需要非常短的响应延迟，但这些不同的行为中的每一个都需要有关信号来源的身份和定位的足够信息，以产生生态适当的响应。该项目使用称为copepods的小型海洋甲壳类动物来分析其微观发际传感器如何通过小水运动刺激其称为刚毛，以及神经系统如何控制其极快的特定行为反应。实验将现代的高速视频成像技术与神经生理记录和新型的微力刺激技术结合在一起，研究了特定种类的刚毛的特定类型的流体动力障碍驱动器的运动以及刚毛中的神经信号如何编码以启动适当的行为反应。 这项研究的结果将超越感觉神经生物学对微型传感器技术和机器人技术的工程以及生物海洋学的影响，因为copepods是许多海洋生态系统的非常重要的组成部分。 该项目通过启动新的研究者的研究计划，并提供涉及计算，工程，生物学和行为方法的跨学科学生培训来实现职业和教育影响。