Tactile guidance of prey capture in Etruscan shrews

被引:110
作者
Anjum, Farzana
Turni, Hendrik
Mulder, Paul G. H.
van der Burg, Johannes
Brecht, Michael
机构
[1] Erasmus MC, Dept Neurosci, NL-3000 DR Rotterdam, Netherlands
[2] Inst Behav Ecol, D-72070 Tubingen, Germany
[3] Erasmus MC, Dept Epidemiol & Biostat, NL-3000 DR Rotterdam, Netherlands
关键词
active touch; barrel cortex; object recognition; Suncus etruscus; whisker;
D O I
10.1073/pnas.0605573103
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Whereas visuomotor behaviors and visual object recognition have been studied in detail, we know relatively little about tactile object representations. We investigate a new model system for the tactile guidance of behavior, namely prey (cricket) capture by one of the smallest mammals, the Etruscan shrew, Suncus etruscus. Because of their high metabolic rate and nocturnal lifestyle, Etruscan shrews are forced to detect, overwhelm, and kill prey in large numbers in darkness. Crickets are exquisitely mechanosensitive, fast-moving prey, almost as big as the shrew itself. Shrews succeed in hunting by lateralized, precise, and fast attacks. Removal experiments demonstrate that both macrovibrissae and microvibrissae are required for prey capture, with the macrovibrissae being involved in attack targeting. Experiments with artificial prey replica show that tactile shape cues are both necessary and sufficient for evoking attacks. Prey representations are motion- and size-invariant. Shrews distinguish and memorize prey features. Corrective maneuvers and cricket shape manipulation experiments indicate that shrew behavior is guided by Gestalt-like prey descriptions. Thus, tactile object recognition in Etruscan shrews shares characteristics of human visual object recognition, but it proceeds faster and occurs in a 20,000-times-smaller brain.
引用
收藏
页码:16544 / 16549
页数:6
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