Meeting Abstract
The ability of organisms to locomote efficiently depends on detecting key features within the environment. For soft-bodied animals moving in terrestrial habitats, most mechanical interactions deform the body more than for animals with stiff skeletons. It is not known how this affects the collection of sensory information or how such information is used to adapt ongoing behavior. To begin answering these questions we have used reduced preparations of the caterpillar, Manduca sexta to record the overall spike activity produced by cuticle sensory cells in response to a spectrum of stimuli. Traditional electrophysiological recording techniques requires cutting the body wall with extensive damage to the multi-dendritic neurons. We have developed a new preparation that inverts the animal without making longitudinal cuts or severing muscle attachments. This dissection technique maintains tension circumferentially on the body wall as well as keeping the trachea largely intact. Extracellular nerve recordings in this preparation can be maintained for ~2 hours and a wide variety of coordinated nerve activity is produced spontaneously. We are currently using this preparation to explore the effects of mechanosensory stimulation on the patterns of sensory and motor activity involved in different behaviors including crawling and defensive strike behavior. Preliminary recordings demonstrate the efficacy of this technique to record both tonic and phasic activity encoded by cuticle sensory cells.
