Serotonin Selectively Increases Detectability of Motion Stimuli in the Electrosensory System

ENeuro
Mariana M Marquez, Maurice J Chacron

Abstract

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 baseli...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 30, 2018·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Rhalena A ThomasMaurice J Chacron
Aug 1, 2020·Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience·Mariana M Marquez, Maurice J Chacron
Oct 2, 2019·Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience·Volker Hofmann, Maurice J Chacron
May 12, 2021·Integrative and Comparative Biology·Sarah E D DavisLaura M Hurley

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