Control of aggression by biogenic amines in crickets

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The aggressive behavior expressed by animals towards members of their own species is influenced by numerous social and other experiences. The project proposed here aims to establish the causative role of biogenic amines (primarily octopamine and serotonin) in experience-dependent plasticity of aggression in male crickets. This will provide general insights into the mechanisms that adapt aggressive behaviour to individual needs and social constraints, in a comparatively simple animal model system. In intact freely behaving crickets we aim to quantify the influences of residency, winning, losing, isolation and crowding on aggressiveness, and investigate how this is influenced by injecting amines and aminergic drugs. Similarly, but now at the neuronal level, we will investigate how local injection of aminergic drugs modulate the responsiveness of identified brain interneurones to an agonistic, aggression-inducing stimulus (mechanical antennal stimulation). By combining transmitter immunocytochemistry with conventional neurone tracing we will identify candidate aminergic neurones with projections in mechanosensory antennal neuropile, and investigate how these neurones modulate the investigated interneurones. By mapping the spatial relationships of aminergic varicosities to afferent synapses with the studied interneurones we will gain insights into the extent to which amines function as global-general or local-dedicated modulators of complex behavior.