Citation

Briggman KL, Abarbanel HDI, Kristan WB. Science 2005; 307(5711): 896-901.

Affiliation

Division of Biological Sciences, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0357, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, American Association for the Advancement of Science)

DOI

10.1126/science.1103736

PMID

15705844

Abstract

We investigated decision-making in the leech nervous system by stimulating identical sensory inputs that sometimes elicit crawling and other times swimming. Neuronal populations were monitored with voltage-sensitive dyes after each stimulus. By quantifying the discrimination time of each neuron, we found single neurons that discriminate before the two behaviors are evident. We used principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis to find populations of neurons that discriminated earlier than any single neuron. The analysis highlighted the neuron cell 208. Hyperpolarizing cell 208 during a stimulus biases the leech to swim; depolarizing it biases the leech to crawl or to delay swimming.

Language: en