Viewpoint. What the marine mollusc Aplysia can tell the neurologist about behavioral neurophysiology.

Abstract

Only recently has man begun to regard himself as mundane and not divine. This conceptual liberation has allowed him to ask frank questions concerning the physical and chemical mechanisms which determine or affect his behavior. Unfortunately the answers to these questions have been slow in coming. The reasons for this are two-fold: Basic ethical considerations preclude the experiments necessary to investigate the neural substrates of human behavior in man. Further, man’s behavior and nervous system are both so enormously complex and subtle, it is therefore unlikely that much real fundamental knowledge could be gained from such experiments if performed. It is more expedient to study simple behavior in simpler organisms than man to understand how nervous systems operate in general and, it is hoped, to eventually gain a better understanding of the human in particular. This tactic is known as the “model systems” approach. By discovering the strategies adopted by less complex nervous systems to deal with simple situations one can devise a realistic model of the neural mechanisms that control more complex behavior in more advanced animals.Many animals have served as valuable sources of model systems. Among them the marine gastropod molluscAplysiahas received considerable attention. In comparison to the human nervous system with approximately 50 billion neurons, theAplysianervous system contains relatively few neurons — about 20,000. Furthermore the study of theAplysianervous system has several other advantageous characteristics. A number of forms of behavioral plasticity that are found in all higher metazoans including man are also found in theAplysia. These simple but non-trivial types of behavioral plasticity include habituation, sensitization and associative learning as well as easily defined qualities of neural function which we choose to call “behavioral states”. In addition the nervous system is composed of neurons which are large and, in many cases, easily identified by anatomical and physiological criteria so that the “same” cell can be studied in more than one animal under more than one set of experimental conditions. The cell bodies of the neurons inAplysia, from which electrical recordings can be fairly easily obtained, are electrically close to their dendrites so that changes in postsynaptic potentials occurring during modifications of behavior can be monitored.