Meeting Abstract
Though stomatopods (commonly known as mantis shrimp) possess one of the world’s most complex visual sensors, we know very little about how this information is used to modulate the animal’s motor outputs. Behavioural experiments demonstrate that mantis shrimp modulate their strike speed relative to incoming sensory information, which led us to hypothesize that interneurons in the descending nerve cord encode this information. To test this, two electrophysiological preparations were developed to record from descending neurons in the circumesophogeal connectives (CECs) in tSquilla mantis and Squilla empusa. During recordings, animals were presented with a variety of visual stimuli as well as tactile stimulation to the anterior antennae. Robust responses were observed in response to looming and moving target visual stimuli, and light touches to the primary antennules. Both looms and mechanical stimulation of the antennules were associated with recruitment of the strike muscles. Light microscopy revealed a population of 7-8 extremely large (50-100 μm) diameter axons that are hypothesized to be the source of these large extracellular responses. These interneurons are good candidates for targeting future intracellular recording experiments in stomatopods and are hypothesized to relay multimodal information from the cerebral ganglion to the inferior motor centers, including the strike motor centers in the subesophogeal ganglion. This study is the first to present stomatopods as a tractable system for investigating the neuroscience principles that govern predictive movement.
