The role of centrally located motoneurones in producing the whole-body withdrawal response of Lymnaea stagnalis (L.) was investigated. The motoneurones innervating the muscles used during whole-body withdrawal, the columellar muscle (CM) and the dorsal longitudinal muscle (DLM) were cells with a high resting potential (-60 to -70 mV) and thus a high threshold for spike initiation. In both semi-...

http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Cox, Kingsley J A, Tensen, Cornelis P, Van der Schors, Roel C, Li, Ka Wan, van Heerikhuizen, Harm, Vreugdenhil, Erno, Geraerts, Wijnand P M and Burke, Julian F (1997) Cloning characterisation and expression of a G-protein-couple receptor from Lymnaea stagnalis and identification of a leucokinin-like peptide PSFHSWSamide as its endogenous ligand. Journal of Neuroscience, ...

The balanced-diet hypothesis states that a diverse prey community is beneficial to consumers due to resource complementarity among the prey species. Nonselective consumer species cannot differentiate between prey items and are therefore not able to actively regulate their diet intake. We thus wanted to test whether the balanced-diet hypothesis is applicable to nonselective consumers. We conduct...

Transmission patterns of Fasciola hepatica were investigated on beef cattle (n=3) and sheep (n=3) farms in Sweden between 2011 and 2012. The dynamics of fluke infection, particularly estimated time of infection, were screened each grazing season by ELISA detection of antibodies in lambs (n=94) and first grazing season calves (n=61). Colostral transfer of F. hepatica antibodies from seropositive...

Fasciolosis, caused by the trematode Fasciola hepatica, is a zoonosis of economic importance in livestock that is emerging as a chronic disease in humans. The intermediate hosts are lymnaeid snails, in which diagnosis of infection is traditionally based on cercarial shedding, tissue sectioning and crushing. We developed a PCR assay for the sensitive and specific detection of F. hepatica in fiel...

Central neurons of Lymnaea stagnalis exhibit, by the dne of a hyperpolarizing current pulse, a breaking-off of the rise of the membrane potential to the resting level. By using an electrical model of the membrane, this effect is accounted for by the activation of the fast outward current.

Adult snails are capable of learning associatively not to perform aerial respiration and then to consolidate the acquired behaviour into long-term memory (LTM). Juvenile Lymnaea, however, perform aerial respiration significantly less often and the three-neuron circuit that drives this behaviour operates significantly differently than in it does in adults. We asked whether these ontogenic behavi...