U.S.-Australia Cooperative Research: Neural Connectivity and Processing in the Crustacean Brain

这笔赠款为美国国际和平协会探望她的澳大利亚同事、新南威尔士大学动物系的大卫·桑德曼博士提供了8个月的支持。研究人员将专注于甲壳类大脑中有组织的突触区域的连接性和生理学问题，这些区域被称为副脑叶。副叶是许多十足类动物大脑中最大的突触区域之一，其功能作用目前尚不清楚。没有感觉神经元投射到这些区域，也没有运动神经元在副叶有突触区域。这种情况导致了许多人对副叶的功能进行猜测，并提出了这些是“联合”区域的建议。有趣的是，附属叶是采用底栖生物生活方式的十足类动物的一个独特特征。采用电生理和染料注入的方法，研究了澳大利亚淡水小龙虾Cherax Destructor副叶的输入输出关系。研究人员预计，这些研究将使人们更清楚地了解甲壳类大脑这一区域的功能作用，这可能会成为理解脊椎动物大脑的模型。这两名调查人员的工作都得到了充足的资金：桑德曼得到了澳大利亚研究理事会的资助，贝尔茨主要得到了美国国立卫生研究院的资助。贝尔茨博士获得了美国国家科学基金会神经科学项目颁发的总统青年研究员奖。

This grant provides eight months of support for the U.S. PI to visit her Australian colleague, Dr. David Sandeman of the Zoology Department at the University of New South Wales. The investigators will concentrate on problems of connectivity and physiology in organized synaptic regions in the crustacean brain, known as the accessory lobes. The functional role of the accessory lobes, among the largest synaptic regions in many decapod brains, currently is not well understood. No sensory neurons project to these regions, and no motor neurons have synaptic fields in the accessory lobes. This situation has led to much speculation as to the function of the accessory lobes and to the suggestions that these are "associative" regions. It is interesting to note that accessory lobes are a unique feature of those decapods that have adopted a benthic life style. Electro-physiological and dye injection methods will be used to examine the imput-output relationships of the accessory lobe in the Australian fresh-water crayfish Cherax destructor. The investigators expect that these studies will lead to a clearer understanding of the functional role of this area of the crustacean brain, which may serve as a model for understanding vertebrate brains. Both investigators have been well funded for their work: Sandeman by the Australian Research Council and Beltz mostly by NIH. Dr. Beltz has a Presidential Young Investigator award from NSF's Neuroscience Program.