The Electrical Response of the Lateral Line System of Fish to Tone and Other Stimuli

Abstract

The previous work done on the physiology of the lateral line system of fish falls into two main phases. The early workers, Lee (1895), Parker (1902Parker ( , 1904, and Parker and Van Heusen (1917) investigated the behavior of fish when the lateral line organs and/or other sense receptors had been destroyed. Responses to various stimuli were recorded. Parker and Van Heusen decided that catfish could hear tone up to 688 cycles per second with the ear but that the lateral line organs responded only up to 344 cycles per second.Later, other work was done on the electrical response of the lateral line nerves. Hoagland showed that they were in a state of continuous activity upon which the response to various stimuli could be seen superimposed. Schriever (1934-35) apparently unaware of Hoagland's work reported similar results but on different species, while Lowenstein and Sand (1936), and Sand (1937,1938 worked with both teleosts and elasmobranchs but mainly with the lateral line system in the head region of Raja. Sand and Hoagland used tuning forks and obtained responses to tone produced in the water by this means.The mechanism whereby fish hear sounds is of particular interest in view of the work done during the war and now being continued on the production of sound by fish (Fish, 1948). This paper reports an investigation of the response of the lateral line to tone at a known intensity level and frequency by recording the electrical response of the lateral line nerve. It also describes observations made on the response to certain other stimuli. MethodPreparation.--The majority of the work was done on Fundulus majalis and Fundulus heteroclitus because of their ready availability, ease in handling, and general high vitality. Fish varying between 1 and 4 inches in length were used, most of the results being obtained from specimens about 3 inches long. The fish were freshly pithed and pinned to a board. Two scalpel cuts about ½ inch long and t of an inch to either side of the ventral branch of the lateralis vagi (Denney, 1937-38) were made immediately behind the operculum. A very superficial transverse cut was made, care being taken not to damage the nerve, and then under low power of the dissecting microscope the

THE FUNCTIONING and SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LATERAL‐LINE ORGANS

“…As was to be expected from the behaviour experiments discussed above, local water displacements (currents) were generally found to be electrophysiologically most effective stimuli: in elasmobranchs' (Sand, 1937), in bony fishes (Hoagland, 1933a(Hoagland, , 1934Schriever, 1935;Sand, 1937; Suckling & Suckling, 1950; Katsuki, Yoshino & Chen, 1951 b ; Dijkgraaf, 1 9 5 2~) and in amphibians (Dijkgraaf, 1956;Gorner, 1961).…”

“…A few words may be added about the response of the lateral end-organs to lowfrequency tuning-forks and to other vibratory stimuli (Hoagland, 1933(Hoagland, a, 1934Schriever, 1935;Sand, 1937;Suckling & Suckling, 1950;Katsuki et al 1951b). I n most cases a certain degree of synchronization of the nerve impulses was observed, particularly with lower frequencies (< 15e-zoo cyc./sec.).…”

The Lateral Line and Sound Reception

“…(3) Electrophysiological experiments, which nearly all show lateral line organs to be sensitive to low frequency vibrations or sound (Hoagland 1933, Schriever 1935, Sand 1937, Suckling and Suckling 1950, 1964, Katsuki, Yoshino, and Chen 1951, Jielof, Spoor, and de Vries 1952, Kuiper 1956, Harris and van Bergeijk 1962, Suckling 1962, Flock 1965, Horch and Salmon 1973, Tavolga 1977.…”

Morphology and function of the lateral line of juvenile steelhead trout in relation to gas‐bubble disease*

“…At 33 dB, however, the majority of the sensory units did not respond to frequencies above 300 Hz. Suckling & Suckling (1951), in experiments with the lateral line of killifish, Fundulus sp., also noted the upper limit of frequency response was 300 Hz at approximately 26 dB.…”