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。小型水生动物对局部水运动的反应非常快，可以在几毫秒内产生整个动物的行为，包括进食，生殖运动或逃离捕食者。 尽管需要非常短的响应延迟，但这些不同行为中的每一种都需要关于信号源的身份和定位的足够信息，以产生生态上适当的响应。该项目使用微小的海洋甲壳类动物桡足类来分析它们的微观毛发状传感器（称为刚毛）如何受到微小的水运动的刺激，以及神经系统如何控制它们极其快速的特定行为反应。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，实验研究了特定种类的流体动力学流体扰动如何驱动刚毛的运动，以及刚毛的神经信号如何编码以启动适当的行为反应。 这项研究的结果将产生超越感觉神经生物学的影响，微传感器技术和机器人技术的工程，也生物海洋学，因为桡足类是许多海洋生态系统的一个非常重要的组成部分。 该项目通过启动一个新的调查员的研究计划，并通过提供跨学科的学生培训，涉及计算，工程，生物和行为的方法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.