The neuromasts are the morphofunctional unit of the lateral line system serving as mechanosensors for water flow and movement. The mechanisms underlying the detection of the mechanical stimuli in the vertebrate mechanosensory cells remain poorly understood at the molecular level, and no information is available on neuromasts. Mechanotransduction is the conversion of a mechanical stimulus into a...

Afferent neurons commonly exhibit a somatotopic arrangement in the central nervous system that organizes spatially discrete sensory input. We are interested in how that spatial input gets integrated into motor commands. With resources for screening genes and neural circuits, and given that the cells and ion channels that transduce tactile stimuli in Drosophila larvae are remarkably well-charact...

Signals produced during social interactions convey crucial information about the sender's identity, quality, reproductive state and social status. Fishes can detect near-body water movements via the mechanosensory lateral line system, and this sense is used during several common fish behaviors, such as schooling, rheotaxis and predator-prey interactions. In addition, many fish behaviors, such a...

BACKGROUND Behavioral studies of Caenorhabditis elegans traditionally are done on the smooth surface of agar plates, but the natural habitat of C. elegans and other nematodes is the soil, a complex and structured environment. In order to investigate how worms move in such environments, we have developed a technique to study C. elegans locomotion in microstructures fabricated from agar. METHOD...

Ca2+ is released from the vacuole into the yeast cytoplasm on an osmotic upshock, but how this upshock is perceived was unknown. We found the vacuolar channel, Yvc1p, to be mechanosensitive, showing that the Ca2+ conduit is also the sensing molecule. Although fragile, the yeast vacuole allows limited direct mechanical examination. Pressures at tens of millimeters of Hg (1 mmHg = 133 Pa) activat...

All animals use a sophisticated array of receptor proteins to sense their external and internal environments. Major advances have been made in recent years in understanding the molecular and genetic bases for sensory transduction in diverse modalities, indicating that both metabotropic and ionotropic pathways are important in sensory functions. Here, I review the historical background and recen...