Measures of heart and ventilatory rates in freely moving crayfish

Sonya M. Bierbower, Robin L. Cooper

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

The fear, flight or fight response serves as the fundamental physiological basis for examining an organism's awareness of its environment under an impending predator attack. Although it is not known whether invertebrates posses an autonomic nervous system identical to that of vertebrates, evidence shows invertebrates have a sympathetic-like response to regulate the internal environment and ready the organism to act behaviorally to a given stimuli. Furthermore, this physiological response can be feasibly measured and it acts as a biological index for the animal's internal state. Measurements of the physiological response can be directly related to internal and external stressors through changes in the central nervous system controlled coordination of the cardio-vascular and respiratory systems. More specifically, monitoring heart and ventilation rates provide quantifiable measures of the stress response not always behaviorally observed. Crayfish are good model organisms for heart and ventilatory rate measurements due to the feasibility of recording, as well as the rich history known of the morphology of the crayfish, dating back to Huxley in 1888, and the well-studied typical behaviors.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere1594
JournalJournal of Visualized Experiments
Issue number32
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2009

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience
  • General Chemical Engineering
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Immunology and Microbiology

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