Collaborative Research: Modulatory Role of Central Complex Brain Systems in Context Dependent Predation of Three Mantis Species

合作研究：中枢复杂脑系统在三种螳螂物种的情境依赖性捕食中的调节作用

• 批准号: 1557279
• 负责人: Gavin Svenson
• 金额: $ 6.6万
• 依托单位: Cleveland Museum of Natural History
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-03-15 至 2024-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1557279&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Modulatory; Role; Central

Animal behavior is affected by an individual's internal conditions. For example, as animals feed, their strategies for acquiring food changes. The impact of food odors has a very different effect on a hungry person than one who has just had a large meal. This project brings together laboratories from the Case Western Reserve University Biology department and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to examine changes in hunting strategy that occur as praying mantises feed. The biology laboratory will examine changes in brain systems that control movement as the insect feeds or receives injections of hormones associated with feeding. Insects provide advantages for monitoring brain activity for long feeding periods. Results will demonstrate how brain systems that are altered by hormones associated with feeding affect hunting and will increase our general understanding of the mechanisms by which hormonal changes alter animal behavior. The museum laboratory will expand the study to a wider range of praying mantis species. The project also has a unique educational component. Project related material will be developed into new high- and middle-school teaching modules for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's award winning distance learning program, which has reached thousands of students in 48 states. These programs align with Ohio's New Learning Standards. Modules will be offered for free for the duration of the project and 3 subsequent years.The project focuses on the highly structured central complex insect brain region that has received much recent attention. Numerous forms of sensory information coupled with motor effects and the presence of behaviorally relevant neuromodulators imply an important role for the central complex in behavioral adaptation. Yet, no study has brought all these components together to demonstrate how these brain circuits generate context dependent adjustments in natural behavior. This project seeks do that by relating changes in praying mantis hunt strategies to central complex activity patterns recorded by multi-channel tetrode implants as the hunt takes place in one generalist and two specialist praying mantis species. Tetrode wires will be implanted in the insect's central complex. Then after recovery the subject will be moved to an arena where it hunts either live prey (cockroach nymphs) or artificial prey (moving dots on a computer screen that makes up the floor of the arena). The artificial stimulus allows repeated trials to provide quantitative data on neural activity associated with hunting. Neural and behavioral changes will be documented as physiological state is modified by feeding or insulin injection. Comparative studies will clarify how evolution acts on brain structures to shape behavior for specific niches. Successful completion will be transformative both in our understanding of the central complex's role in behavioral adjustment and, more generally, in defining mechanisms by which brain regions in all animals can alter adaptive behavior, thereby establishing the praying mantis as a new general model for behavioral selection.

动物的行为受到个体内部条件的影响。例如，当动物进食时，它们获取食物的策略会发生变化。食物气味对饥饿者的影响与刚吃过大餐的人的影响截然不同。该项目汇集了凯斯西储大学生物系和克利夫兰自然历史博物馆的实验室，研究螳螂进食时狩猎策略的变化。生物实验室将检查昆虫进食或注射与进食相关的激素时控制运动的大脑系统的变化。昆虫为监测长时间进食期间的大脑活动提供了优势。研究结果将证明，与进食相关的激素改变的大脑系统如何影响狩猎，并将增加我们对激素变化改变动物行为机制的总体理解。博物馆实验室将把研究范围扩大到更广泛的螳螂物种。该项目还具有独特的教育成分。项目相关材料将被开发成新的高中和初中教学模块，用于克利夫兰自然历史博物馆屡获殊荣的远程学习项目，该项目已覆盖 48 个州的数千名学生。这些计划符合俄亥俄州的新学习标准。模块将在项目期间和随后的三年内免费提供。该项目重点关注最近受到广泛关注的高度结构化的中央复杂昆虫大脑区域。多种形式的感觉信息加上运动效应和行为相关神经调节剂的存在意味着中枢复合体在行为适应中发挥着重要作用。然而，还没有研究将所有这些组成部分结合在一起，以证明这些大脑回路如何在自然行为中产生依赖于环境的调整。该项目寻求通过将螳螂狩猎策略的变化与多通道四极植入物记录的中心复杂活动模式联系起来，以实现这一目标，因为狩猎发生在一种通用螳螂和两种专业螳螂物种中。四极线将被植入昆虫的中央复合体中。然后，在恢复后，对象将被转移到一个竞技场，在那里它捕猎活的猎物（蟑螂若虫）或人工猎物（在构成竞技场地板的计算机屏幕上移动点）。人工刺激允许重复试验，以提供与狩猎相关的神经活动的定量数据。当通过喂食或注射胰岛素改变生理状态时，神经和行为的变化将被记录下来。比较研究将阐明进化如何作用于大脑结构以塑造特定生态位的行为。成功的完成将改变我们对中央复合体在行为调整中的作用的理解，更广泛地说，将改变所有动物大脑区域改变适应性行为的机制，从而将螳螂确立为行为选择的新通用模型。