Abstract
Fish escape from approaching threats via a stereotyped escape behavior. This behavior, and the underlying neural circuit organized around the Mauthner cell command neurons, have both been extensively investigated experimentally, mainly in two laboratory model organisms, the goldfish and the zebrafish. However, fish biodiversity is enormous, a number of variants of the basal escape behavior exist. In marine gobies (a family of small benthic fishes) which share burrows with alpheid shrimp, the escape behavior has likely been partially modified into a tactile communication system which allow the fish to communicate the approach of a predatory fish to the shrimp. In this communication system, the goby responds to intermediate-strength threats with a brief tail-flick which the shrimp senses with its antennae.
We investigated the shrimp goby escape and communication system with computational models. We asked how the circuitry of the basal escape behavior could be modified to produce behavior akin to the shrimp-goby communication system. In a simple model, we found that mutual inhibitions between Mauthner cells can be tuned to produce an oscillatory response to intermediate strength inputs, albeit only in a narrow parameter range.
Using a more detailed model, we found that two modifications of the fish locomotor system transform it into a model reproducing the shrimp goby behavior. These modifications are: 1. modifying the central pattern generator which drives swimming such that it is quiescent when receiving no inputs; 2. introducing a direct sensory input to this central pattern generator, bypassing the Mauthner cells.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Ms. Lala Grace Calle, Ms. Dana Manogan, Drs. Nadia Palomar-Abesamis and Dr. Patrick Cabaitan for helpful discussion of the manuscript and the anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on the first version. We would also like to thank Sungwoo Ahn for the Mauthner cell code for the complex model. G.B.E. would like to thank the National Science Foundation.
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K.M.S. conceived the idea to the study. J.A.L. and G.B.E. developed the model, wrote and ran the simulations. All authors wrote the manuscript.
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Communicated by Action Editor: Catherine E Carr.
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Landsittel, J.A., Ermentrout, G.B. & Stiefel, K.M. A computational model of the shrimp-goby escape and communication system. J Comput Neurosci 49, 395–405 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10827-021-00787-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10827-021-00787-4