Cargando…

Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System

Serotonergic innervation of sensory areas is found ubiquitously across the central nervous system of vertebrates. Here, we used a system’s level approach to investigate the role of serotonin on processing motion stimuli in the electrosensory system of the weakly electric fish Apteronotus albifrons....

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Marquez, Mariana M., Chacron, Maurice J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Society for Neuroscience 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5969320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29845105
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0013-18.2018
_version_ 1783325947034861568
author Marquez, Mariana M.
Chacron, Maurice J.
author_facet Marquez, Mariana M.
Chacron, Maurice J.
author_sort Marquez, Mariana M.
collection PubMed
description Serotonergic innervation of sensory areas is found ubiquitously across the central nervous system of vertebrates. Here, we used a system’s level approach to investigate the role of serotonin on processing motion stimuli in the electrosensory system of the weakly electric fish Apteronotus albifrons. We found that exogenous serotonin application increased the firing activity of pyramidal neural responses to both looming and receding motion. Separating spikes belonging to bursts from those that were isolated revealed that this effect was primarily due to increased burst firing. Moreover, when investigating whether firing activity during stimulation could be discriminated from baseline (i.e., in the absence of stimulation), we found that serotonin increased stimulus discriminability only for some stimuli. This is because increased burst firing was most prominent for these. Further, the effects of serotonin were highly heterogeneous, with some neurons displaying large while others instead displaying minimal changes in responsiveness following serotonin application. Further analysis revealed that serotonin application had the greatest effect on neurons with low baseline firing rates and little to no effect on neurons with high baseline firing rates. Finally, the effects of serotonin on sensory neuron responses were largely independent of object velocity. Our results therefore reveal a novel function for the serotonergic system in selectively enhancing discriminability for motion stimuli.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5969320
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher Society for Neuroscience
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-59693202018-05-29 Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System Marquez, Mariana M. Chacron, Maurice J. eNeuro New Research Serotonergic innervation of sensory areas is found ubiquitously across the central nervous system of vertebrates. Here, we used a system’s level approach to investigate the role of serotonin on processing motion stimuli in the electrosensory system of the weakly electric fish Apteronotus albifrons. We found that exogenous serotonin application increased the firing activity of pyramidal neural responses to both looming and receding motion. Separating spikes belonging to bursts from those that were isolated revealed that this effect was primarily due to increased burst firing. Moreover, when investigating whether firing activity during stimulation could be discriminated from baseline (i.e., in the absence of stimulation), we found that serotonin increased stimulus discriminability only for some stimuli. This is because increased burst firing was most prominent for these. Further, the effects of serotonin were highly heterogeneous, with some neurons displaying large while others instead displaying minimal changes in responsiveness following serotonin application. Further analysis revealed that serotonin application had the greatest effect on neurons with low baseline firing rates and little to no effect on neurons with high baseline firing rates. Finally, the effects of serotonin on sensory neuron responses were largely independent of object velocity. Our results therefore reveal a novel function for the serotonergic system in selectively enhancing discriminability for motion stimuli. Society for Neuroscience 2018-05-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5969320/ /pubmed/29845105 http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0013-18.2018 Text en Copyright © 2018 Marquez and Chacron http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
spellingShingle New Research
Marquez, Mariana M.
Chacron, Maurice J.
Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System
title Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System
title_full Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System
title_fullStr Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System
title_full_unstemmed Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System
title_short Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System
title_sort serotonin selectively increases detectability of motion stimuli in the electrosensory system
topic New Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5969320/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29845105
http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0013-18.2018
work_keys_str_mv AT marquezmarianam serotoninselectivelyincreasesdetectabilityofmotionstimuliintheelectrosensorysystem
AT chacronmauricej serotoninselectivelyincreasesdetectabilityofmotionstimuliintheelectrosensorysystem