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Neuronal organization of escape swimming inTritonia

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Summary

  1. 1.

    Escape swimming behavior inTritonia diomedea consists of two major components: an initial reflexive withdrawal followed by a series of alternating ventral and dorsal flexions. The basic mechanism of generating motor neuron activity, therefore, switches from reflexive to centrally programmed.

  2. 2.

    Three classes of cerebral interneurons and some of their synaptic connections have been identified.

  3. 3.

    Reflexive withdrawal interneurons (RWI) receive direct input from sensory afferents and synapse with motoneurons in the pedal ganglion (DFN, VFN). This class of interneuron is excited during reflexive withdrawals and inhibited during the swim phase.

  4. 4.

    Swim interneurons (SI) are excited during reflexive withdrawals and burst during the swim phase.

  5. 5.

    The third set of interneurons (C2) are shown to be necessary for the normal initiation and maintenance of the cyclical swim phase. Activity in C2 neurons appears to retrigger the swim oscillator network cycle-by-cycle.

  6. 6.

    C2 neurons inhibit the RWI neurons during swimming thus freeing motoneurons to respond predominantly to inputs from the SI and C2 neurons. The switch from reflexive to programmed motor output is, therefore, mediated centrally by two identified C2 neurons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 94305, Stanford, California, USA

    Peter A. Getting

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  1. Peter A. Getting
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Additional information

I thank Dr. A.O.D. Willows, Director, Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, Friday Harbor, WA. 98250 for providing facilities during the months of July and August. I also thank Drs. S. Thompson, J. Wine, and B. Mulloney for careful criticism of the manuscript, as well as Paul Taggert and Richard Hume for helpful discussions and the sharing of results during the course of this research. Supported by N.I.H. research grant number NS12529.

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Getting, P.A. Neuronal organization of escape swimming inTritonia . J. Comp. Physiol. 121, 325–342 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00613012

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00613012

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