1.The paired cerebral giant cells (CGCs) of Lymnaea were studied using electrophysiological and anatomical techniques. 2. A strong electrotonic junction coupling the CGCs is located in the buccal ganglia, several millimetres distal to the cell bodies. This leads to 1:1 spike activity in the two cells. 3. The CGCs receive phasic and tonic inputs which appear to be common to the two cells. Two types of phasic input are synchronous with synaptic input to feeding motoneurones in the buccal ganglia. 4. Morphological studies, using three separate dye injection techniques, confirm the axonal projections shown by electrophysiological methods. The CGCs project ipsilaterally into one lip nerve, the cerebrobuccal connective, and all buccal nerves. 5. Symmetry of anatomy and of firing activity cause the CGCs to function as a single neural unit.
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Call for new preLighters
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preLights is the preprint highlighting community supported by The Company of Biologists. At the heart of preLights are our preLighters: early-career researchers who select and write about interesting new preprints for the research community. We are currently looking for new preLighters to join our team. Find out more and apply here.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
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Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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