Summary
Following lateral line stimulation with surface waves single unit activity was recorded from the periphery, torus semicircularis, and tecturn opticum ofXenopus laevis. The reaction of units to varying stimulus directions was examined.
The directional specificity (DS) was calculated on the basis of spike counts per stimulus using circular statistics. It was expressed as the length of the mean vector.
Discharges of primary afferents of the ramus supraorbitalis and ramus infraorbitalis were phase locked to the stimulus to a varying degree depending on the location of the corresponding groups of neuromasts. Their DS was not better than 0.26.
Lemniscal fibers, representing the ascending output of the medulla and units of the torus semicircularis reached a DS of 0.10–0.24 and 0.11–0.36 respectively. Neurons in the tectum opticum were the most sharply tuned with DS ranging between 0.81 and 0.96.
The surroundings were represented by the best directions of two arrays of tectal units forming a map which is in register with the representation of the corresponding visual field of the animal.
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Abbreviations
- DS :
-
directional specificity
- r.i.o. :
-
ramus infraorbitalis
- r.s.o. :
-
ramus supraorbitalis
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Zittlau, K.E., Claas, B. & Münz, H. Directional sensitivity of lateral line units in the clawed toadXenopus laevis Daudin. J. Comp. Physiol. 158, 469–477 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00603793
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00603793