This project will investigate an important question behavioral neuroscience; how sensory and hormonal cues might act to coordinate somatic and visceral expression. The frog forebrain will be employed as a simplified model system for investigating coordination processes, with special attention paid to the distribution of auditory information and the influence of gonadal steroids, two cues directing reproductive behavior, a classic example of coordinated somatomotor-visceromotor expression. The project will use neuroanatomical techniques (HRP and fluorescence tracing) to describe the distribution of sensory input to the basal ganglia (responsible for somatic motor control) and to the hypothalamus/preoptic area (responsible for visceromotor control) to determine if certain sensory systems project in parallel to both; use neurophysiological techniques to investigate one of these inputs, the influence of acoustic communication signals on hypothalamic/preoptic are neurons; and use neurochemical assays to test whether steroid hormones coordinate behavioral control centers by regulating dopamine receptor activity in each. The project will yield insights into the pattern and evoluting of sensory and hormonal control of natural behavior in particular reproductive behavior. Failures of regulation or appropriate coordination of the investigated regions is a hallmark of many pathological processes in humans, from Parkinson's disease to eating disorders, sexual disfunction and abnormal reactions to stress. The proposed project, although basic research, could therefore contribute to the understanding of fundamental neurological processes impaired during many common regulatory disfunctions.
| Allison, J D; Wilczynski, W (1994) Efferents from the suprachiasmatic nucleus to basal forebrain nuclei in the green treefrog (Hyla cinerea). Brain Behav Evol 43:129-39 |
| Wilczynski, W; Allison, J D; Marler, C A (1993) Sensory pathways linking social and environmental cues to endocrine control regions of amphibian forebrains. Brain Behav Evol 42:252-64 |
| Wilczynski, W; McClelland, B E; Rand, A S (1993) Acoustic, auditory, and morphological divergence in three species of neotropical frog. J Comp Physiol A 172:425-38 |
| Allison, J D (1992) Acoustic modulation of neural activity in the preoptic area and ventral hypothalamus of the green treefrog (Hyla cinerea). J Comp Physiol A 171:387-95 |
| Allison, J D; Wilczynski, W (1991) Thalamic and midbrain auditory projections to the preoptic area and ventral hypothalamus in the green treefrog (Hyla cinerea). Brain Behav Evol 38:322-31 |
