Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
Volume 221, Issue 19, Pages -Publisher
COMPANY BIOLOGISTS LTD
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.186163
Keywords
Lateral line groove; Tall neuromast; Medium neuromast; Short neuromast; Neuromast pedestal
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Funding
- Shanghai Ocean University, Graduate Students Program
- Shanghai University First-Class Disciplines Project of Fisheries, Sensory Neurobiology [A2-2019-14-001-4]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [30970365]
- National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China [41306097]
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Fish detect water motion with their mechanosensory lateral line. The basic functional unit of the lateral line is the neuromast. In most fish species, neuromasts are located in lateral line canals (canal neuromasts) or on the skin (superficial neuromasts). In this paper, we describe the lateral line system of the pufferfish, Takifugu obscurus. If threatened, this fish inflates its body by sucking water into the esophagus. Pufferfish lack a canal system but have neuromasts located directly on the skin or in open grooves. Each groove houses tall, medium and short neuromasts, based on the height of their pedestal. One or more medium neuromasts were always located between two tall neuromasts, and the short neuromasts were scattered between them. Tall neuromasts showed phasic responses to water jets, similar to the canal neuromasts of other fish species. In contrast, the medium and short neuromasts showed tonic responses to water jets. The response properties of nerve fibers that innervated the medium and short neuromasts were similar to those of the superficial neuromasts found in other fish species. Our results suggest that each groove of a pufferfish has two functional groups of neuromasts. This may allow pufferfish to extract spatial and temporal hydrodynamic information, despite the changes in body shape that occur during and after inflation. The short neuromasts at the bottom of a groove most likely supplement the medium neuromasts when the body is maximally inflated.
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