A Gap Junction Circuit Enhances Processing of Coincident Mechanosensory Inputs
نویسندگان
چکیده
Electrical synapses have been shown to be important for enabling and detecting neuronal synchrony in both vertebrates and invertebrates. Hub-and-spoke circuits, in which a central hub neuron is electrically coupled to several input neurons, are an overrepresented motif in the C. elegans nervous system and may represent a conserved functional unit. The functional relevance of this configuration has been demonstrated for circuits mediating aggregation behavior and nose touch perception. Modeling approaches have been useful for understanding structurally and dynamically more complex electrical circuits. Therefore, we formulated a simple analytical model with minimal assumptions to obtain insight into the properties of the hub-and-spoke microcircuit motif. A key prediction of the model is that an active input neuron should facilitate activity throughout the network, whereas an inactive input should suppress network activity through shunting; this prediction was supported by cell ablation and in vivo neuroimaging experiments in the C. elegans nose touch circuit. Thus, the hub-and-spoke architecture may implement an analog coincidence detector enabling distinct responses to distributed and localized patterns of sensory input.
منابع مشابه
Mechanosensory neurons control the timing of spinal microcircuit selection during locomotion
Despite numerous physiological studies about reflexes in the spinal cord, the contribution of mechanosensory feedback to active locomotion and the nature of underlying spinal circuits remains elusive. Here we investigate how mechanosensory feedback shapes active locomotion in a genetic model organism exhibiting simple locomotion-the zebrafish larva. We show that mechanosensory feedback enhances...
متن کاملLateral Facilitation between Primary Mechanosensory Neurons Controls Nose Touch Perception in C. elegans
The nematode C. elegans senses head and nose touch using multiple classes of mechanoreceptor neurons that are electrically coupled through a network of gap junctions. Using in vivo neuroimaging, we have found that multidendritic nociceptors in the head respond to harsh touch throughout their receptive field but respond to gentle touch only at the tip of the nose. Whereas the harsh touch respons...
متن کاملThe Different Mechanisms of Action Potential Propagation in the Heart
It was thought previously that cardiac muscle gap junctions provide low-resistance connections between cells and permit the local-circuit current to flow. Some evidences show that myocardial cells may not require low-resistance connections for successful propagation of the action potential (AP). It seems that some other types of mechanisms must be involved in AP propagation. In this article, we...
متن کاملThe Different Mechanisms of Action Potential Propagation in the Heart
It was thought previously that cardiac muscle gap junctions provide low-resistance connections between cells and permit the local-circuit current to flow. Some evidences show that myocardial cells may not require low-resistance connections for successful propagation of the action potential (AP). It seems that some other types of mechanisms must be involved in AP propagation. In this article, we...
متن کاملDesign of ARC less InGaP/GaAs DJ solar cell with high efficiency
In this work, we used the Atlas Tcad Silvaco software to investigate the effect of adding an additional BSF layer on the performance of InGap / GaAs dual junction solar cells with a hetero tunnel Al0.7Ga0.3As-In0.49Ga0.51P junction. These analyzes indicate that, the addition of a BSF layer to the bottom cell the increase in the thickness of the BSF top cell would reduce the recombination and in...
متن کامل