Discovery of The First Command Neuron Mediated Behavior
In 1946, C.A.G. Wiersma first described the tail-flip escape in the crayfish Procambarus clarkii and noted that the giant interneurons present in the tail were responsible for the reaction. The aforementioned neuronal fibres consist of a pair of lateral giant interneurons and a pair of medial giant interneurons, and Wiersma found that stimulating just one Lateral Giant Interneuron (LG or LGI) or one Medial Giant Interneuron (MG or MGI) would result in the execution of a tail flip. Wiersma and K. Ikeda then proposed the term “Command Neuron” in their 1964 publication, and applied it to the giant interneurons ability to command the expression of the escape response. This was the first description of a command neuron mediated behavior and it indicated that the depolarization of a neuron could precipitate complex innate behaviors in some organisms.
This concept was further fleshed out with more specific and stringent conditions in 1972 when Kupfermann and Weiss published The Command Neuron Concept. The paper stated that command neurons were neurons (or small sets of neurons) carrying the entire command signal for a natural behavioral response. According to the authors, command neurons were both necessary and sufficient in the production of a behavioral response. The concept of command neuron mediated behaviors was both ground breaking and controversial, since determining command neuron mediated behaviors was a problematic process due to difficulties in understanding and interpreting anatomical and behavioral data.
Read more about this topic: Caridoid Escape Reaction
Famous quotes containing the words discovery of, discovery, command, mediated and/or behavior:
“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son’s future are counting on me.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“I had now formed a clear and settled opinion, that the people of America were well warranted to resist a claim that their fellow-subjects in the mother-country should have the entire command of their fortunes, by taxing them without their consent.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“We talk about taking “pleasure in a thing”: but in truth it is pleasure in ourselves, mediated by a thing.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The confusion of emotions with behavior causes no end of unnecessary trouble to both adults and children. Behavior can be commanded; emotions can’t. An adult can put controls on a child’s behavior—at least part of the time—but how do you put controls on what a child feels? An adult can impose controls on his own behavior—if he’s grown up—but how does he order what he feels?”
—Leontine Young (20th century)