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First published online June 7, 2004
Journal of Experimental Biology 207, iii (2004)
Copyright © 2004 The Company of Biologists Limited
doi: 10.1242/jeb.01098

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Inside JEB

VIEW FROM AN ELECTRIC PERSPECTIVE

Kathryn Phillips

kathryn{at}biologists.com

Since humans harnessed the power of electricity at the turn of the 19th century, we haven't looked back. But some fish coopted electric fields to their own advantage well before Benjamin Franklin went kite flying in a thunderstorm. Mormyrid fish use electric fields to perceive the world around them. How they interpret distortions in their self-generated electric fields to negotiate their way around has puzzled Angel Caputi and his colleagues for several years. Knowing that Gnathonemus petersii generate their field with an electrically discharging organ, Caputi and his international team decided to measure the fish's electrical activity while simultaneously recording their neurological responses to a variety of objects, to see how Gnathonemus begins to interpret the complex currents resulting from electric field disturbance (p. 2443).

The team found that metal objects placed in the fish's electric field distorted the current at the fish's surface, increasing the current in the centre of the object's electrical image while depleting the current in the surrounding area. Caputi and his team describe the profile of the current shift as a `Mexican hat' shape, with a high cap and turned up brim.

Recording signals from the receptors that detect the fluctuating surface current, the team describes that the intensity of the electrical stimulus is coded by the amplitude and number of neural responses sent by receptors to the electrosensory lobe where the fish processes the signals. Caputi and his team explain that as `each individual receptor encodes information from the whole scene... the brain must process the electrical image presented over the whole sensory surface'.

References

Gómez, L., Budelli, R., Grant, K. and Caputi, A. A. (2004). Pre-receptor profile of sensory images and primary afferent neuronal representation in the mormyrid electrosensory system. J. Exp. Biol. 207,2443 -2453.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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Related articles in JEB:

Pre-receptor profile of sensory images and primary afferent neuronal representation in the mormyrid electrosensory system

Leonel Gómez, Ruben Budelli, Kirsty Grant, and Angel A. Caputi
JEB 2004 207: 2443-2453. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in JEB Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Phillips, K. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Phillips, K. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?