The role of feedback and modulation in determining temperature resiliency in the lobster cardiac nervous system.

Changes in ambient temperature affect all biological processes. However, these effects are process specific and often vary non-linearly. It is thus a non-trivial problem for neuronal circuits to maintain coordinated, functional output across a range of temperatures.

Reciprocally inhibitory circuits operating with distinct mechanisms are differently robust to perturbation and modulation.

Reciprocal inhibition is a building block in many sensory and motor circuits. We studied the features that underly robustness in reciprocally inhibitory two neuron circuits. We used the dynamic clamp to create reciprocally inhibitory circuits from pharmacologically isolated neurons of the crab stomatogastric ganglion by injecting artificial graded synaptic (I) and hyperpolarization-activated inward (I) currents.