Gryllus: Behavioral and Neural Responses
from Huber & Thorson 1985
Notes:
These calling songs of crickets are mating signals produced by males and function to attract mates. The short-term rhythms (pulses) are one of the aspects of the songs that females use in choosing mates. The upper graph shows the behavioral response (song tracking by female field crickets) as a function of the pulse period of the male’s calling songs. Females track at 100% to a song having a pulse period around 35 ms but are less able to track songs with faster or slower pulse periods. The functions is somewhat of a ‘bandpass’ filter. Similarly, when Huber and Thorson recorded from neurons in the brain they found three types of neurons whose response was influenced by the pulse period of the stimulus. Some neurons (like those shown in blue) were ‘lowpass’, responding best to songs with pulse periods below 35 ms. Others (in red) were ‘highpass’ and responded best to songs with pulse periods higher than 35 ms. A third type of neuron (shown in green) had a ‘bandpass’ characteristic. Thus, the behavioral responses to differences in the temporal rhythms are correlated with the responses of neural elements in the cricket’s brain.