Jg. Canfield et Gj. Rose, ACTIVATION OF MAUTHNER NEURONS DURING PREY CAPTURE, Journal of comparative physiology. A, Sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology, 172(5), 1993, pp. 611-618
The Mauthner (M-) cells, a bilateral pair of medullary neurons in fish
, initiate the characteristic ''C-start'' predatory escape response of
teleosts. Similar movements have been described during hatching, soci
al interactions, and feeding. M-cell firing, however, has not been cor
related directly with these other behaviors. The objective of this stu
dy was to determine whether the M-cell, in addition to escape, plays a
role in feeding. 1. Goldfish were chronically implanted with electrod
es positioned near the axon cap of one of the two M-cells. Subsequentl
y, M-cell activity was monitored for up to 8 days while fish were surf
ace feeding on live crickets. 2. The M-cell fires and the fish perform
s a C-shaped flexion in association with the terminal phase of prey ca
pture. Thus, the M-cell is active in the context of at least two behav
iors, predator escape and prey capture, and may be considered a part o
f behaviorally shared neural circuitry. 3. For the goldfish, Mauthner-
initiated flexions during feeding rapidly remove the prey from the wat
er's surface and minimizes the fish's own susceptibility to surface pr
edation. Other species may possess a diverse repertoire of Mauthner-me
diated feeding behaviors that depend on their adaptive specializations
for predation. Moreover, group competition between predators and thei
r prey may have facilitated a '' neural arms race for M-cell morpholog
y and physiology.