Demonstration of functional connectivity of the flight motor system in all stages of the locust

Abstract

The development of the flight motor pattern was studied by recording from the thoracic muscles of locusts of various developmental stages. In response to a short wind stimulus, larval locusts generate unpatterned motor activity, whereas newly moulted adults generate the flight pattern (Fig. 1A). The latter is equivalent to the mature adult flight pattern, although more irregular and of lower frequency. Experiments with highly deafferentated locusts indicate that the switch from the larval tonic to adult phasic flight pattern and subsequent increase in frequency are not dependent on phasic peripheral feedback from moving body structures (Fig. 1B). By using octopamine, flight motor activity could be released without need of the wind stimulus (Fig. 2). This corresponded to the normal wind released flight pattern of intact locusts, although the frequency was lower (Fig. 8). Following octopamine treatment, the response to wind stimulation was enhanced. Wind then released in deafferentated adults long flight sequences of significantly elevated frequency (Fig. 3). Although flight is essentially an adult specific behaviour, octopamine was finally found to release flight motor activity in all larval stages (Fig. 7). We conclude that major steps in the development of the flight motor circuitry are completed by the end of embryogenesis. Thus, in contrast to previous assumptions (cf. Bentley and Hoy 1970; Kutsch 1974a; Altman 1975), postembryonic changes in neither the central, nor peripheral nervous system appear to be of major importance for the ontogeny of the locust flight motor program. Whether developmental changes in the wind sensory system of the head, or levels of neurohormones such as octopamine, are related to the newly acquired responsiveness of freshly moulted adult locusts to the normal flight releasing stimulus is discussed.