短尾蝮视顶盖神经元对红外信号的处理与编码

项目名称： 短尾蝮视顶盖神经元对红外信号的处理与编码

项目编号： No.31301882

项目类型： 青年科学基金项目

立项/批准年度： 2014

项目学科： 生物科学

项目作者： 陈勤

作者单位： 中国科学院成都生物研究所

项目金额： 22万元

中文摘要： 凭借发达的红外感知能力，蝮蛇能在黑暗环境里对猎物进行快速而准确的识别与定位。红外信号通过特有的红外感知系统，还原为类似视觉的目标图像。同时，红外与视觉系统还表现出相互补充、加成、抑制等作用。但是，目前我们对红外感知系统对信号的处理和编码方式知之甚少。蝮蛇如何通过红外信息对环境目标形态、运动状态等进行识别，还有待进一步研究。红外信号处理的第一个高级中枢为中脑视顶盖，其相关神经元活动可视为对信息特征的客观响应，同时该区域也是红外与视觉信息的汇合点。我们将以短尾蝮为研究对象，拟从视顶盖神经元对红外信号的响应特征出发，设计可量化调控的红外信号，采用单细胞记录法观察神经元的动作电位反应，深入分析神经元对不同红外信号参数的编码特征，并与视觉系统进行对比研究。最终结果将揭示蝮蛇红外感知系统如何成像这一核心问题，并探讨红外觉与视觉的相互关系。本项目对推动生物红外感知理论以及仿生学研究的深入有现实意义。

中文关键词： 红外感知系统；蝮蛇；形态学；行为学；神经电生理

英文摘要： With the developed infrared sense system, pit vipers could detect and locate the prey rapidly and accurately in dark surroundings. With the unique infrared neurons, infrared information is processed and encoded in central nervous system, and reform to image like the visual signal processing. To adapt to the complicated and varied environment, there are some interactive relationships between infrared and visual systems, such as complementation, enhancing, and inhibition. But up to now, the regulation of signal processing and encoding in infrared system is not clear. How pit vipers determine the shape and movement of targets is still a question. As the primary nerve centre of infrared information and visual processing , the neural activities in tectum are considered to be the objective response for infrared signals. Short-tailed pit vipers will be used in the project to research the neuron activities to infrared information. We have been designing the measurable and tunable infrared signals. Then we are going to examine the action potentials to different types of infrared information, analyze the selectivity of neurons in tectum to parameters of signal, and compare the characteristics to visual system. This project, finally, will reveal the working mechanism of infrared processing in tectum, and discuss the relati

英文关键词： Infrared sense system；Pit-viper；Morphology；Ethology；Neural Electrophysiology