Mechanoreception in Marine Copepods: Detecting Complex Fluid Signals

在微观尺度上，我们还没有很好地理解生物机械感觉器官是如何工作的。小型水生动物对当地的水运动做出非常快的反应，这可以在几毫秒内产生整个动物的行为，包括进食、繁殖运动或逃离捕食者。尽管需要非常短的反应延迟，但每种不同的行为都需要足够的信息来识别和定位信号来源，以产生生态上适当的反应。这个项目使用一种叫做桡足类的微小海洋甲壳类动物来分析它们微小的毛发状传感器（刚毛）是如何被微小的水运动刺激的，以及神经系统是如何控制它们极其快速的特定行为反应的。将现代高速视频成像技术与神经生理学记录和新型微机械刺激技术相结合，实验研究了特定类型的流体动力扰动如何驱动刚毛的运动，以及来自刚毛的神经信号如何被编码以启动适当的行为反应。由于桡足类动物是许多海洋生态系统的重要组成部分，因此本研究的结果将对感觉神经生物学以外的微传感器技术和机器人工程以及生物海洋学产生影响。该项目通过启动一个新的研究者研究项目，并通过提供涉及计算、工程、生物学和行为学方法的跨学科学生培训来解决一个综合问题，从而对职业和教育产生影响。

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.