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First published online November 4, 2005
Journal of Experimental Biology 208, 4213-4222 (2005)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2005
doi: 10.1242/jeb.01896

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Response properties of electrosensory afferent fibers and secondary brain stem neurons in the paddlefish

Michael H. Hofmann^1,*, Boris Chagnaud¹ and Lon A. Wilkens²

¹ University of Bonn, Institute of Zoology, Poppelsdorfer Schloss, 53115 Bonn, Germany
² Center for Neurodynamics, Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St Louis, MO 63121, USA

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: mhofmann{at}uni-bonn.de)

Accepted 22 September 2005

The passive electrosense is used by many aquatic animals to detect weak electric fields from other animals or from geoelectric sources. In contrast to the active electrosense, `passive' means that there are no electric organs, and only external fields are measured. Electroreceptors are distributed in the skin, but are different from other skin senses because they can detect and localize sources a considerable distance away. Distant sources, however, stimulate a large number of receptors at the same time and central circuits have to compute the exact location of the source from this distributed information. In order to gain insights into the algorithms involved, we compared the response properties of units in the dorsal octavolateral nucleus (DON) with primary afferent fibers in the paddlefish. The following parameters were tested: spontaneous activity, sensitivity, frequency tuning, receptive field size, movement sensitivity, and topography within the DON. Although there are some differences in spontaneous activity and receptive field size, there are no major differences between primary afferents and DON units that could reveal any substantial amount of spatial information processing. In particular the lack of any topographic order whithin the DON renders a lateral interaction between neighboring receptive fields unlikely.

Key words: passive electroreception, paddlefish, Polyodon spathula, dorsal octavolateral nucleus, topography

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ELECTROSENSE TELLS PADDLEFISH THE TIME

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				M. H. Hofmann, B. P. Chagnaud, and L. A. Wilkens Edge-Detection Filter Improves Spatial Resolution in the Electrosensory System of the Paddlefish J Neurophysiol, August 1, 2009; 102(2): 797 - 804. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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