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

动物的行为受个体内在条件的影响。例如，随着动物进食，它们获取食物的策略也会发生变化。食物气味的影响对饥饿的人和刚刚吃了一顿大餐的人有非常不同的影响。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，以检查螳螂在觅食时狩猎策略的变化。生物实验室将检查在昆虫进食或接受与进食相关的激素注射时，控制运动的大脑系统的变化。昆虫为长时间的进食期监测大脑活动提供了有利条件。结果将展示与进食相关的荷尔蒙改变的大脑系统如何影响狩猎，并将增加我们对荷尔蒙变化改变动物行为的机制的总体理解。博物馆实验室将把这项研究扩大到更广泛的螳螂物种。该项目还有一个独特的教育组成部分。与项目相关的材料将被开发成新的高中和中学教学模块，用于克利夫兰自然历史博物馆获奖的远程学习项目，该项目已覆盖48个州的数千名学生。这些项目与俄亥俄州的新学习标准保持一致。该项目将在项目期间和随后的3年内免费提供模块。该项目的重点是高度结构的中央复杂昆虫大脑区域，该区域最近受到了很大关注。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，意味着中央复合体在行为适应中发挥着重要作用。然而，还没有一项研究将所有这些组成部分结合在一起，证明这些大脑回路如何在自然行为中产生与环境相关的调整。该项目试图通过将螳螂狩猎策略的变化与多渠道四极管植入物记录的中央复杂活动模式相关联来实现这一点，因为狩猎发生在一个多面手和两个专业螳螂物种中。四极线将被植入昆虫的中央复合体。然后在恢复后，目标将被转移到竞技场，在那里它要么猎杀活的猎物(蟑螂若虫)，要么猎杀人造猎物(在电脑屏幕上移动的圆点，构成竞技场的地板)。这种人工刺激允许重复试验，提供与狩猎相关的神经活动的定量数据。当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，以塑造特定利基的行为。成功的完成将对我们理解中央复合体在行为调节中的作用以及更广泛地定义所有动物的大脑区域可以改变适应行为的机制，从而建立螳螂作为行为选择的新的通用模型都将是革命性的。

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.