Consequences of food-attraction conditioning in Helix: a behavioral and electrophysiological study |
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Authors: | M Peschel V Straub T Teyke |
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Institution: | (1) Institut für Zoologie (III) Biophysik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, D-55099 Mainz, Germany;(2) Present address: Sussex Centre for Neuroscience, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, BN1 9QG Brighton, UK |
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Abstract: | Food-attraction conditioning is a learning phenomenon by which adult Helix pomatia acquire the ability to locate food through exposure to that particular food. Food-conditioned snails can be distinguished from naive snails during their approach to food. Naive snails keep their tentacles upright — whereas food-conditioned animals bend the tentacles down-ward, in a horizontal orientation, pointed in the direction of the food.Tentacle musculature is innervated by two peritentacular nerves (PTn), each projecting to approximately one hemi-section of the tentacle wall. Stimulating the peritentacular nerves caused the tentacles to bend downward in a manner reflecting the full complement of tentacle movements performed by conditioned snails.The neural correlate of tentacle movements was investigated in isolated ganglion preparations with the posterior tentacles attached. PT nerve activity was recorded while the olfactory epithelia were stimulated with natural food odors. Preparations obtained from conditioned animals responded with a substantial increase in unit activity (mean increase 280%) to stimulation with odor of the conditioned food but not to other odors. Preparations from naive animals did not respond to food odor stimulation. The electrophysiological results demonstrated that plasticity due to conditioning the snails in vivo survived dissection and could be monitored in vitro.Abbreviations
ext PTn
external peritentacular nerve
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int PTn
internal peritentacular nerve |
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Keywords: | Learning Neuronal correlate behavioral plasticity Appetitive conditioning neuroethology Mollusk Snail |
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