ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Removing a single neuron in a vertebrate brain forever abolishes an essential behavior.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Stabilizing selection in an identified multisensory neuron in blind cavefish.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Thymosin β4 promotes zebrafish Mauthner axon regeneration by facilitating actin polymerization through binding to G-actin.BMC biology · 2024Article
- MicroRNA-9 promotes axon regeneration of mauthner-cell in zebrafish via her6/ calcium activity pathway.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2024Article
- The archerfish predictive C-start.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2023Review
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- A Single Central Pattern Generator for the Control of a Locomotor Rolling Wave in MolluscResearch (Washington, D.C.) · 2023Article
- The calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) regulates zebrafish sensorimotor decision making via a genetically defined cluster of hindbrain neurons.Cell reports · 2022Article
- Escape response kinematics in two species of tropical shark: short escape latencies and high turning performance.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Recording from an Identified Neuron Efficiently Reveals Hazard for Brain Function in Risk Assessment.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Predator-induced maternal effects determine adaptive antipredator behaviors via egg composition.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Multiple neuronal networks coordinateeLife · 2021Article
- Social familiarity improves fast-start escape performance in schooling fish.Communications biology · 2021Article
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- Bisphenols exert detrimental effects on neuronal signaling in mature vertebrate brains.Communications biology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The giant Mauthner (M) cell is the largest neuron known in the vertebrate brain. It has enabled major breakthroughs in neuroscience but its ultimate function remains surprisingly unclear: An actual survival value of M cell-mediated escapes has never been supported experimentally and ablating the cell repeatedly failed to eliminate all rapid escapes, suggesting that escapes can equally well be driven by smaller neurons. Here we applied techniques to simultaneously measure escape performance and the state of the giant M axon over an extended period following ablation of its soma. We discovered that the axon survives remarkably long and remains still fully capable of driving rapid escape behavior. By unilaterally removing one of the two M axons and comparing escapes in the same individual that could or could not recruit an M axon, we show that the giant M axon is essential for rapid escapes and that its loss means that rapid escapes are also lost forever. This allowed us to directly test the survival value of the M cell-mediated escapes and to show that the absence of this giant neuron directly affects survival in encounters with a natural predator. These findings not only offer a surprising solution to an old puzzle but demonstrate that even complex brains can trust vital functions to individual neurons. Our findings suggest that mechanisms must have evolved in parallel with the unique significance of these neurons to keep their axons alive and connected.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.