Periplaneta America Research Paper
The Effects of Temperature on the Extracellular Firing Rate of Action Potentials in the Ventral Nerve Cord of the Periplaneta Americana
Andrew Goldsmith (andrew.goldsmith@uconn.edu), Tuesdays 1-4PM Section: 2
(Partner: Ana Charalambides)
Abstract In polikiotherms it is known that the amount of locomotion varies based on the environmental temperature. We believe that this is caused by differences in the neural activity. We therefore investigated how temperature changes affect the extracellular neural activity in the ventral nerve cord of the Periplaneta Americana cockroach. It was hypothesized that the frequency of extracellular action potentials was directly dependant on temperature. It was also thought that any changes in the neural …show more content…
This was investigated by applying three different temperature treatments (12˚C +/- 3˚C, 35˚C +/- 3˚C and 22˚C +/- 3˚C) to the ventral nerve cord. Since it was possible that extreme temperature changes could damage the ventral nerve cord, only one treatment was done on one cockroach (N=4). A constant triggered puff of air was used as the stimulus when collecting the data. A cobalt backfill showed no clear morphological differences among the nerve cords of different temperature treatments. It was demonstrated that there was a significant linear relationship between the frequency of action potentials and the temperature of the ventral nerve cord (p0.05). Since the warm treatment’s recovery temperature did not recover we could not perform the same analysis therefore we will assume that if it had more time it would have. This allows us to assume that warms
Andrew Goldsmith (andrew.goldsmith@uconn.edu), Tuesdays 1-4PM Section: 2
(Partner: Ana Charalambides)
Abstract In polikiotherms it is known that the amount of locomotion varies based on the environmental temperature. We believe that this is caused by differences in the neural activity. We therefore investigated how temperature changes affect the extracellular neural activity in the ventral nerve cord of the Periplaneta Americana cockroach. It was hypothesized that the frequency of extracellular action potentials was directly dependant on temperature. It was also thought that any changes in the neural …show more content…
This was investigated by applying three different temperature treatments (12˚C +/- 3˚C, 35˚C +/- 3˚C and 22˚C +/- 3˚C) to the ventral nerve cord. Since it was possible that extreme temperature changes could damage the ventral nerve cord, only one treatment was done on one cockroach (N=4). A constant triggered puff of air was used as the stimulus when collecting the data. A cobalt backfill showed no clear morphological differences among the nerve cords of different temperature treatments. It was demonstrated that there was a significant linear relationship between the frequency of action potentials and the temperature of the ventral nerve cord (p0.05). Since the warm treatment’s recovery temperature did not recover we could not perform the same analysis therefore we will assume that if it had more time it would have. This allows us to assume that warms