The Activity of Isolated Neurons and the Modulatory State of an Isolated Nervous System Represent a Recent Behavioural State

Abstract

Behavioural/motivational state is known to influence nearly all aspects of physiology and behaviour. The cellular basis of behavioural state control is only partially understood. Our investigation, performed on the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis whose nervous system is useful for work on completely isolated neurons, provided several results related to this problem. First, we demonstrate that the behavioural state can produce long-term changes in individual neurons that persist even after neuron isolation from the nervous system. Specifically, we found that pedal serotonergic neurons that control locomotion show higher activity and lower membrane potential after being isolated from the nervous systems of hungry animals. Second, we show that the modulatory state (the chemical neuroactive microenvironment of the central ganglia) changes in accord with the nutritional state of an animal and produces predicted changes in single isolated locomotor neurons. Third, we report that observed hunger induced effects can be explained by the increased synthesis of serotonin in pedal serotonergic neurons, which impacts the electrical activity of isolated serotonergic neurons and the intensity of extrasynaptic serotonin release from the pedal ganglia.