Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, The University of Chicago, 1027 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, The University of Chicago, 1027 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
J Exp Biol. 2020 Nov 3;223(Pt 21):jeb227280. doi: 10.1242/jeb.227280.
The texture of contacted surfaces influences our perception of the physical environment and modulates behavior. Texture perception and its neural encoding mechanisms have traditionally been studied in the primate hand, yet animals of all types live in richly textured environments and regularly interact with textured surfaces. Here we explore texture sensation in a different type of vertebrate limb by investigating touch and potential texture encoding mechanisms in the pectoral fins of fishes, the forelimb homologs. We investigated the pectoral fins of the round goby (), a bottom-dwelling species that lives on substrate types of varying roughness and whose fins frequently contact the bottom. Analysis shows that the receptive field sizes of fin ray afferents are small and afferents exhibit response properties to tactile motion that are consistent with those of primates and other animals studied previously. In response to a periodic stimulus (coarse gratings), afferents phase lock to the stimulus temporal frequency and thus can provide information about surface texture. These data demonstrate that fish can have the capability to sense the tactile features of their near range physical environment with fins.
接触表面的质地会影响我们对物理环境的感知，并调节行为。质地感知及其神经编码机制传统上是在灵长类动物的手上进行研究的，然而，所有类型的动物都生活在质地丰富的环境中，并经常与质地表面相互作用。在这里，我们通过研究鱼类（底栖物种）的胸鳍（前肢同源物）中的触摸和潜在的质地编码机制，探索了另一种类型的脊椎动物肢体的质地感觉。我们研究了圆鳍鱼（）的胸鳍，这种底栖物种生活在不同粗糙度的基质上，其鳍经常接触底部。分析表明，鳍射线传入神经的感受野大小很小，传入神经对触觉运动的反应特性与先前研究的灵长类动物和其他动物的反应特性一致。对周期性刺激（粗光栅）的反应，传入神经与刺激的时间频率锁相，因此可以提供有关表面质地的信息。这些数据表明，鱼类可以用鳍感知其近距离物理环境的触觉特征。
