Abstract
A model of signal processing in the insect mechano-acoustical cercal system is considered which maintains consistency in the directional detection of air flow and in relation to the position of the sensory organs (cerci) by means of connections between four central neurons and certain groups of receptors located on both cerci. The monocercal mechanism for consistency in directional detection described previously [2–4, 8], according to the data available, would indicate changes in the effectiveness of connections between the central neurons and the receptors belonging to each cercus depending on the location of the latter. One distinguishing feature examined in this article on the bicercal consistency mechanism is that it shapes neither regulation of connections between neural elements nor use of information acquired on the position of the sensory organs at the moment of signal perception. The model is based on the two following properties of the cercal system: firstly, the presence on each cercus of receptors with preferred directions of stimulation, namely parallel and perpendicular to the axis of the cercus, and secondly, symmetrical location of the two cerci in relation to that of the insect's body. A method is suggested for determining direction of the air flow equating to calculation of this factor by projecting the velocity vector against the two unvarying basic directions — alignments which do not change when the cerci move symmetrically together and apart.
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Additional information
Institute for Information Transmission Studies, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 53–61, January–February, 1987.
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Rozhkova, G.I. Bicercal model of the mechanism for consistency in directional detection of mechano-acoustic signals in insects. Neurophysiology 19, 45–51 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01055994
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01055994