Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, 113-0032 Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Computational Biology, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, 277-0882 Chiba, Japan.
Science. 2017 Nov 3;358(6363):615-623. doi: 10.1126/science.aan4428.
Insects and mammals share similarities of neural organization underlying the perception of odors, taste, vision, sound, and gravity. We observed that insect somatosensation also corresponds to that of mammals. In , the projections of all the somatosensory neuron types to the insect's equivalent of the spinal cord segregated into modality-specific layers comparable to those in mammals. Some sensory neurons innervate the ventral brain directly to form modality-specific and topological somatosensory maps. Ascending interneurons with dendrites in matching layers of the nerve cord send axons that converge to respective brain regions. Pathways arising from leg somatosensory neurons encode distinct qualities of leg movement information and play different roles in ground detection. Establishment of the ground pattern and genetic tools for neuronal manipulation should provide the basis for elucidating the mechanisms underlying somatosensation.
昆虫和哺乳动物在嗅觉、味觉、视觉、声音和重力感知的神经组织方面具有相似性。我们观察到，昆虫的躯体感觉也与哺乳动物相对应。在这里，所有躯体感觉神经元类型的投射到昆虫的相当于脊髓的部分，按照感觉模态进行了特异性分层，类似于哺乳动物的分层。一些感觉神经元直接支配着昆虫的腹侧脑，形成特定模态和拓扑结构的躯体感觉图谱。具有匹配的神经索中树突的上升中间神经元将轴突发送到相应的脑区。来自腿部躯体感觉神经元的通路编码了腿部运动信息的不同特性，并在地面检测中发挥不同的作用。地面模式的建立和神经元操作的遗传工具应该为阐明躯体感觉的机制提供基础。
