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Descending pathways mediate adaptive optimized coding of natural stimuli in weakly electric fish.

ABSTRACT: Biological systems must be flexible to environmental changes to survive. This is exemplified by the fact that sensory systems continuously adapt to changes in the environment to optimize coding and behavioral responses. However, the nature of the underlying mechanisms remains poorly understood in general. Here, we investigated the mechanisms mediating adaptive optimized coding of naturalistic stimuli with varying statistics depending on the animal's velocity during movement. We found that central neurons adapted their responses to stimuli with different power spectral densities such as to optimally encode them, thereby ensuring that behavioral responses are, in turn, better matched to the new stimulus statistics. Sensory adaptation further required descending inputs from the forebrain as well as the raphe nuclei. Our findings thus reveal a previously unknown functional role for descending pathways in mediating adaptive optimized coding of natural stimuli that is likely generally applicable across sensory systems and species.

SUBMITTER: Huang CG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6821470 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Descending pathways mediate adaptive optimized coding of natural stimuli in weakly electric fish.

Huang Chengjie G CG Metzen Michael G MG Chacron Maurice J MJ

Science advances 20191030 10

Biological systems must be flexible to environmental changes to survive. This is exemplified by the fact that sensory systems continuously adapt to changes in the environment to optimize coding and behavioral responses. However, the nature of the underlying mechanisms remains poorly understood in general. Here, we investigated the mechanisms mediating adaptive optimized coding of naturalistic stimuli with varying statistics depending on the animal's velocity during movement. We found that centra ...[more]

PMID: 31693006

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Project description:Sensory systems evolve in the ecological niches that each species is occupying. Accordingly, encoding of natural stimuli by sensory neurons is expected to be adapted to the statistics of these stimuli. For a direct quantification of sensory scenes, we tracked natural communication behavior of male and female weakly electric fish, Apteronotus rostratus, in their Neotropical rainforest habitat with high spatiotemporal resolution over several days. In the context of courtship, we observed large quantities of electrocommunication signals. Echo responses, acknowledgment signals, and their synchronizing role in spawning demonstrated the behavioral relevance of these signals. In both courtship and aggressive contexts, we observed robust behavioral responses in stimulus regimes that have so far been neglected in electrophysiological studies of this well characterized sensory system and that are well beyond the range of known best frequency and amplitude tuning of the electroreceptor afferents' firing rate modulation. Our results emphasize the importance of quantifying sensory scenes derived from freely behaving animals in their natural habitats for understanding the function and evolution of neural systems.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The processing mechanisms of sensory systems have evolved in the context of the natural lives of organisms. To understand the functioning of sensory systems therefore requires probing them in the stimulus regimes in which they evolved. We took advantage of the continuously generated electric fields of weakly electric fish to explore electrosensory stimulus statistics in their natural Neotropical habitat. Unexpectedly, many of the electrocommunication signals recorded during courtship, spawning, and aggression had much smaller amplitudes or higher frequencies than stimuli used so far in neurophysiological characterizations of the electrosensory system. Our results demonstrate that quantifying sensory scenes derived from freely behaving animals in their natural habitats is essential to avoid biases in the choice of stimuli used to probe brain function.

Project description:African weakly electric fish of the mormyrid genus Campylomormyrus generate pulse-type electric organ discharges (EODs) for orientation and communication. Their pulse durations are species-specific and elongated EODs are a derived trait. So far, differential gene expression among tissue-specific transcriptomes across species with different pulses and point mutations in single ion channel genes indicate a relation of pulse duration and electrocyte geometry/excitability. However, a comprehensive assessment of expressed Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) throughout the entire transcriptome of African weakly electric fish, with the potential to identify further genes influencing EOD duration, is still lacking. This is of particular value, as discharge duration is likely based on multiple cellular mechanisms and various genes. Here we provide the first transcriptome-wide SNP analysis of African weakly electric fish species (genus Campylomormyrus) differing by EOD duration to identify candidate genes and cellular mechanisms potentially involved in the determination of an elongated discharge of C. tshokwe. Non-synonymous substitutions specific to C. tshokwe were found in 27 candidate genes with inferred positive selection among Campylomormyrus species. These candidate genes had mainly functions linked to transcriptional regulation, cell proliferation and cell differentiation. Further, by comparing gene annotations between C. compressirostris (ancestral short EOD) and C. tshokwe (derived elongated EOD), we identified 27 GO terms and 2 KEGG pathway categories for which C. tshokwe significantly more frequently exhibited a species-specific expressed substitution than C. compressirostris. The results indicate that transcriptional regulation as well cell proliferation and differentiation take part in the determination of elongated pulse durations in C. tshokwe. Those cellular processes are pivotal for tissue morphogenesis and might determine the shape of electric organs supporting the observed correlation between electrocyte geometry/tissue structure and discharge duration. The inferred expressed SNPs and their functional implications are a valuable resource for future investigations on EOD durations.

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Descending pathways mediate adaptive optimized coding of natural stimuli in weakly electric fish.

Publications

Descending pathways mediate adaptive optimized coding of natural stimuli in weakly electric fish.

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