Hemiellipsoid bodies: neural plasticity in the crab's "mushroom bodies"

MAZA FRANCISCO; FERNANDO LOCATELLI; SZTARKER JULIETA; DELORENZI ALEJANDRO

Mar del PLata

Congreso; XXX Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias SAN 2015; 2015

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Hemiellipsoid bodies:neural plasticity in the crab's "mushroom bodies" Maza,FJ;  Locatelli, F; Shkedy A.; Sztarker, J.;Delorenzi A. The corporapedunculata (or mushroom bodies) are complex paired structures in the brain ofvarious invertebrate species and vastly studied in insects. Since their firstdescription in the mid-1850, the corpora pedunculata were considered ashigher-order brain centers involved in sensory integration and memory. Althoughmorphologically diverse, a corpora pedunculata common ground plan was describedacross different invertebrates. Moreover, it has been proposed that themushroom bodies and the vertebrate pallium evolved from the same structure in acommon ancestor circa 600 million years ago. In crustaceans, neuropils sharinga similar ground pattern with the corpora pedunculata are the Hemiellipsoidbodies (HBs), which have been proposed to have an evolutionary common origin.Our group's works in the crab Neohelice granulata shows morphological and immunohistochemicalstudies that parallel the results for well described HBs in other crustaceans,allowing an accurate identification of this neuropil in this crab (see poster Shkedy:auin the present meeting). Here we evaluate, in the crab N. granulata,context-signal memory related neural plasticity of the intrinsic neurons of thecrab's HBs by in vivo calcium imaging. We found neuronal responses tomechanical and visual stimulation and stimulus specific changes during andafter training. These results provide the first in vivo physiological evidencethat support the idea that the HBs of crustaceans are involved in memoryprocesses.