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Responses of brainstem lateral line units to different stimulus source locations and vibration directions

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Abstract

We recorded responses of lateral line units in the medial octavolateralis nucleus in the brainstem of goldfish, Carassius auratus, to a 50 Hz vibrating sphere and studied how responses were affected by placing the sphere at various locations alongside the fish and by different directions of vibration. In most units (88%), stimulation with the sphere from one or more spatial locations caused an increase and/or decrease in discharge rate. In few units (10%), discharge rate was increased by stimulation from one location and decreased by stimulation from an adjacent location in space. In a minority of the units (2%), changing sphere location did not affect discharge rates but caused a change in phase coupling. Units sensitive to a distinct sphere vibration direction were not found. The data also show that the responses of most brainstem units differ from those of primary afferent nerve fibers. Whereas primary afferents represent the pressure gradient pattern generated by the sphere and thus encode location and vibration direction of a vibrating sphere, most brainstem units do not. This information may be represented in the brainstem by a population code or in higher centers of the ascending lateral line pathway.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Björn Scholze for generously providing us with the data shown in Fig. 1. We also wish to thank J. Engelmann for helpful comments on the manuscript. Experiments were performed under the guidelines established by current German animal protection law (permission no. 50.203.2-BN 7, 14/05). This research was supported by the European Commission under project CILIA (project number 016039).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AG Active Sensing, Universität Bielefeld, UHG N7-119, Universitätsstr. 10, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany

    Silke Künzel

  2. Institut für Zoologie, Universität Bonn, Poppelsdorfer Schloß, 53115, Bonn, Germany

    Horst Bleckmann & Joachim Mogdans

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  1. Silke Künzel
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  2. Horst Bleckmann
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Correspondence to Silke Künzel.

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Künzel, S., Bleckmann, H. & Mogdans, J. Responses of brainstem lateral line units to different stimulus source locations and vibration directions. J Comp Physiol A 197, 773–787 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-011-0642-9

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