Dataset Information

Serotonin selectively enhances perception and sensory neural responses to stimuli generated by same-sex conspecifics.

ABSTRACT: Centrifugal serotonergic fibers innervating sensory brain areas are seen ubiquitously across systems and species but their function remains unclear. Here we examined the functional role of serotonergic innervation onto electrosensory neurons in weakly electric fish by eliciting endogenous release through electrical stimulation as well as exogenous focal application of serotonin in the vicinity of the cell being recorded from. Both approaches showed that the function of serotonergic input onto electrosensory pyramidal neurons is to render them more excitable by reducing the spike afterhyperpolarization amplitude and thereby promoting burst firing. Further, serotonergic input selectively improved neuronal responses to stimuli that occur during interactions between same-sex conspecifics but not to stimuli associated with either prey or that occur during interactions between opposite-sex conspecifics. Finally, we tested whether serotonin-mediated enhanced pyramidal neuron responses to stimuli associated with same-sex conspecifics actually increase perception by the animal. Our behavioral experiments show that exogenous injection and endogenous release of serotonin both increase the magnitude of behavioral responses to stimuli associated with same-sex conspecifics as well as simultaneously decrease aggressive behaviors. Thus, our data indicate that the serotonergic system inhibits aggressive behavior toward same-sex conspecifics, while at the same time increasing perception of stimuli associated with these individuals. This function is likely to be conserved across systems and species.

SUBMITTER: Deemyad T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3845146 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Serotonin selectively enhances perception and sensory neural responses to stimuli generated by same-sex conspecifics.

Deemyad Tara T Metzen Michael G MG Pan Yingzhou Y Chacron Maurice J MJ

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20131111 48

Centrifugal serotonergic fibers innervating sensory brain areas are seen ubiquitously across systems and species but their function remains unclear. Here we examined the functional role of serotonergic innervation onto electrosensory neurons in weakly electric fish by eliciting endogenous release through electrical stimulation as well as exogenous focal application of serotonin in the vicinity of the cell being recorded from. Both approaches showed that the function of serotonergic input onto el ...[more]

PMID: 24218585

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Project description:Our ability to integrate multiple sensory-based representations of our surrounding supplies us with a more holistic view of our world. There are many complex algorithms our nervous system uses to construct a coherent perception. An indicator to solve this 'binding problem' are the temporal characteristics with the specificity that environmental information has different propagation speeds (e.g., sound and electromagnetic waves) and sensory processing time and thus the temporal relationship of a stimulus pair derived from the same event must be flexibly adjusted by our brain. This tolerance can be conceptualized in the form of the cross-modal temporal binding window (TBW). Several studies showed the plasticity of the TBW and its importance concerning audio-visual illusions, synesthesia, as well as psychiatric disturbances. Using three audio-visual paradigms, we investigated the importance of length (short vs. long) as well as modality (uni- vs. multimodal) of a perceptual training aiming at reducing the TBW in a healthy population. We also investigated the influence of the TBW on speech intelligibility, where participants had to integrate auditory and visual speech information from a videotaped speaker. We showed that simple sensory trainings can change the TBW and are capable of optimizing speech perception at a very naturalistic level. While the training-length had no different effect on the malleability of the TBW, the multisensory trainings induced a significantly stronger narrowing of the TBW than their unisensory counterparts. Furthermore, a narrowing of the TBW was associated with a better performance in speech perception, meaning that participants showed a greater capacity for integrating informations from different sensory modalities in situations with one modality impaired. All effects persisted at least seven days. Our findings show the significance of multisensory temporal processing regarding ecologically valid measures and have important clinical implications for interventions that may be used to alleviate debilitating conditions (e.g., autism, schizophrenia), in which multisensory temporal function is shown to be impaired.

Dataset Information

Serotonin selectively enhances perception and sensory neural responses to stimuli generated by same-sex conspecifics.

Publications

Serotonin selectively enhances perception and sensory neural responses to stimuli generated by same-sex conspecifics.

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