Behavioral and Electrophysiological Studies on Chemoreception in Aplysia |
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Authors: | JAHAN-PARWAR BEHRUS |
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Institution: | Department of Biology, Clark University Worcester Massachusetts 01610 |
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Abstract: | Using the typical mouth opening response (MOR) as the indexof chemore-ception, several amino acid constituents of naturalfood for Aplysia were effective in eliciting MOR in concentrationsas low is 106 107 M (glutamic acid) and 105106 M (aspartic acid). It was suggested that these substancesmay serve as food attractants for this animal. Combined resultsof behavioral and electrophysiological experiments indicatedthat the most sensitive food receptors of Aplysia are predominantlylocated in the anterior tentacular groove area of the oral veil.These receptors appeared to strongly project to the caudal darkcell clusters of the cerebral ganglion. Extracellular recordingof single afferent units following oral veil stimulation withvarious chemicals showed that the chemoreceptors in the anteriortentacular groove area were 100 to 1000 times more sensitiveto food substances than other stimuli tested. It was suggestedthat these receptors are relatively "specific" to food attractants.There was a correlation between behavioral and electrophysiologicalthreshold data for the individual compounds. The electrophysiologicalthresholds however were 515 times higher than the behavioralthresholds. |
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