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American Zoologist 1974 14(3):905-915; doi:10.1093/icb/14.3.905
© 1974 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
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The Strategies of Behavioral Control in a Coelenterate

ROBERT K. JOSEPHSON
School of Biological Sciences, University of California Irvine, California 92664

Although the cellular substrates of behavioral coordination are uncertain in the hydroid Tubularia, much is known about the strategies of behavioral control. The picture which emerges is that of an animal with diffusely distributed sites capable of initiating spontaneous activity, regional coordination of potential pacemaker loci to form pacemaker systems, and a loose hierarchical organization of pacemaker systems. At least one pacemaker system shows a short term increase in excitability and a longer duration depression of excitability following firing. The short-term excitability increase gives a tendency to fire in bursts, the long-term depression acts as an intrinsic inhibitory feedback to terminate bursts and to control output frequency. All the known interactions between pacemaker systems are excitatory. Exogenous stimuli can excite a conducting system which inhibits most of the pacemaker systems, and one pacemaker system specifically inhibits one set of muscles.


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