The control of walking behaviour in locusts: interactions between competing reflex systems
1990
Moorhouse, J.E. | Ludlow, A.R. | Fosbrooke, I.H.M.
Fifth instar larvae of the African migratory locust, Locusta migratoria migratorioides, will march vigorously for several hours on a treadwheel, as they do in the field. In this study, the treadwheel recorded the duration of bouts of walking and non-walking, and the distance walked second by second. Using recently developed statistical procedures, the probability of a typical walking bout ending was calculated from a large number of bouts that ended spontaneously and was found to increase as a function of time spent walking. Walking locusts also stop in response to a 40-ms pulse of sound at 3 khz. The threshold of this response did not remain constant but, like the probability of stopping spontaneously, changed with the time since the start of the walking bout. The shape and time course of the two measures of changes in probability of a locust stopping were not significantly different. There was no significant change in the stopping thresholds through the 4 or more h of a single session. Nor did the fall in threshold differ significantly between individual locusts although the absolute values did differ significantly. These results are interpreted in terms of an interaction between two reflex systems competing for the behavioural final common path.
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