In a semi-intact preparation of Aplysia californica Cooper, classical conditioning training leads to changes in the synaptic strength at the sensory-motor neurone synapse. However, these changes are neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about the observed behavioural changes of the gill withdrawal reflex. We therefore tested whether the ability of a gill motor neurone to elicit a gill withdrawal response was altered following classical conditioning training of the reflex. We found that following classical conditioning training, the ability of a gill motor neurone to elicit a gill withdrawal response was significantly potentiated. In addition, in control preparations which did not receive classical conditioning training, the ability of a gill motor neurone to elicit a gill response was decreased. Thus, associative learning of this reflex appears to involve alteration in neuronal activity at loci distal to the sensory-motor neurone synapse.
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Call for new preLighters
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preLights is the preprint highlighting community supported by The Company of Biologists. At the heart of preLights are our preLighters: early-career researchers who select and write about interesting new preprints for the research community. We are currently looking for new preLighters to join our team. Find out more and apply here.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
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Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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