IFIBYNE   05513
INSTITUTO DE FISIOLOGIA, BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR Y NEUROCIENCIAS
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Binocular Visual Integration in Neohelice granulata
Autor/es:
FLORENCIA SCARANO; JULIETA SZTARKER; DANIEL TOMSIC
Lugar:
Huerta Grande
Reunión:
Congreso; Congreso anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2013
Institución organizadora:
Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias
Resumen:
As most visual animals, arthropods possess two or more image-forming eyes. Perceiving visual information with more than one eye offers significant advantages (broadened visual field, better signal to noise ratio, estimation of distance by stereopsis, etc.). The crab Neohelice granulata (Chasmagnathus granulatus) is used as experimental model for study visually-guided behaviors. One of the benefits is that it offers the possibility of recording intracellularly the responses of individual neurons to visual stimuli in the intact animal. Recording from the third optic neuropil, we identified four classes of neurons, the Lobula Giants (LG) which seem to play a key role in the processing of visual information and the control of crab?s behavior (Tomsic et al, 2003; Medan et al 2007). Additionally, we know that these neurons integrate information coming from both eyes, giving almost identical responses to ipsilateral and contralateral stimulation (Sztarker and Tomsic, 2004). We still don`t know how information coming from the other eye reaches the LGs. One possibility is that LGs from opposite sides are synaptically connected. To investigate this, we developed a preparation to do simultaneous recordings in the two eyes. Here, we present recordings of different pairs of LGs recorded from opposite sides of the brain. Results will reveal how the different classes of LG interact and allow a better understanding of this circuit known to be involved with decision-making in the crab.