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- Title
Lateral line units in the amphibian brain could integrate wave curvatures.
- Authors
Behrend, Oliver; Branoner, Francisco; Ziehm, Ulrike; Zhivkov, Zhivko
- Abstract
Aquatic predators like Xenopus laevis exploit mechano-sensory lateral lines to localise prey on the water surface by its wave emissions. In terms of distance, hypothetically, the source of a concentric wave could be centrally represented based on wave curvatures: for Xenopus, we present a first sample of 98 extracellularly recorded brainstem and midbrain responses to waves with curvatures ranging from 22.2–11.1 m−1. At the frog, concurrently, wave amplitudes and their spectral composition were kept stable. Notably, 61% of 98 units displayed curvature-dependent spike rates, suggesting that wave curvatures could support an extraction of source distances in the amphibian brain.
- Subjects
PREDATORY aquatic animals; XENOPUS laevis; WAVES (Physics); BRAIN stem; MESENCEPHALON; AMPHIBIANS
- Publication
Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural & Behavioral Physiology, 2008, Vol 194, Issue 8, p777
- ISSN
0340-7594
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00359-008-0351-1