Evaluation of higher order sensory integration and learning in crabs using non-traditional markers of neuronal activity

FRENKEL L., DIMANT B., PORTIANSKY E.L., MALDONADO H. AND DELORENZI A.

Australia

Congreso; IBRO meeting 2007; 2007

Chasmagnathus is a certainly active crab that needs to cope with an always changing environment. We are interested in localizing brain regions that integrate multimodal signals and enable crab’s behavioural plasticity. Relatively little is known about higher level sensory processing in Crustacea. In order to understand where this processes take place, we investigated the amount and localization of non-traditional markers of neuronal activity through confocal images of whole-mount brains after performing immunocytochemistry experiments. Crabs were given different kinds of stimulus and their brains were dissected after a four-hour period. Preliminary results demonstrate that under a wide variety of natural occurrence circumstances i.e.: water deprivation, an increase in water temperature, food odour, the presence of a danger visual stimulus and even memory retrieval, one neuronal activity marker appears to show a highly and very regional-restricted expression in deuterocerebral areas. In contrast, we were not able to find a change neither in amount nor localization of the marker in lateral protocerebrum and optical neuropiles. These results suggest that some identifiable deuterocerebral areas could be involved in higher order sensory integration and learning in crabs.