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Nociception is the sensory nervous system's process of encoding noxious stimuli. In nociception, intense chemical, mechanical, or thermal stimulation of sensory nerve cells called nociceptors produces a signal that travels along a chain of nerve fibers via the spinal cord to the brain. Nociception triggers a variety of physiological and behavioral responses and usually results in a subjective experience, or perception, of pain in sentient beings.
Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fly in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, though its common name is more accurately the vinegar fly. Starting with Charles W. Woodworth's proposal of the use of this species as a model organism, D. melanogaster continues to be widely used for biological research in genetics, physiology, microbial pathogenesis, and life history evolution. As of 2017, six Nobel Prizes have been awarded for research using Drosophila.
The mushroom bodies or corpora pedunculata are a pair of structures in the brain of insects, other arthropods, and some annelids. They are also known to play a role in olfactory learning and memory. In most insects, the mushroom bodies and the lateral horn are the two higher brain regions that receive olfactory information from the antennal lobe via projection neurons. They were first identified and described by French biologist Félix Dujardin in 1850.
Transient receptor potential channels are a group of ion channels located mostly on the plasma membrane of numerous animal cell types. Most of these are grouped into two broad groups: Group 1 includes TRPC, TRPV, TRPVL, TRPM, TRPS, TRPN, and TRPA. Group 2 consists of TRPP and TRPML. Other less-well categorized TRP channels exist, including yeast channels and a number of Group 1 and Group 2 channels present in non-animals. Many of these channels mediate a variety of sensations such as pain, temperature, different kinds of tastes, pressure, and vision. In the body, some TRP channels are thought to behave like microscopic thermometers and used in animals to sense hot or cold. Some TRP channels are activated by molecules found in spices like garlic (allicin), chili pepper (capsaicin), wasabi ; others are activated by menthol, camphor, peppermint, and cooling agents; yet others are activated by molecules found in cannabis or stevia. Some act as sensors of osmotic pressure, volume, stretch, and vibration. Most of the channels are activated or inhibited by signaling lipids and contribute to a family of lipid-gated ion channels.
Johnston's organ is a collection of sensory cells found in the pedicel of the antennae in the class Insecta. Johnston's organ detects motion in the flagellum. It consists of scolopidia arrayed in a bowl shape, each of which contains a mechanosensory chordotonal neuron. The number of scolopidia varies between species. In homopterans, the Johnston's organs contain 25 - 79 scolopidia. The presence of Johnston's organ is a defining characteristic which separates the class Insecta from the other hexapods belonging to the group Entognatha. Johnston's organ was named after the physician Christopher Johnston, father of the physician and Assyriologist Christopher Johnston.
The shaker (Sh) gene, when mutated, causes a variety of atypical behaviors in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Under ether anesthesia, the fly’s legs will shake ; even when the fly is unanaesthetized, it will exhibit aberrant movements. Sh-mutant flies have a shorter lifespan than regular flies; in their larvae, the repetitive firing of action potentials as well as prolonged exposure to neurotransmitters at neuromuscular junctions occurs.
Chordotonal organs are stretch receptor organs in insects and other arthropods. They are located at most joints and are made up of clusters of scolopidia that either directly or indirectly connect two joints and sense their movements relative to one another. They can have both extero- and proprioceptive functions, for example sensing auditory stimuli or leg movement. The femoral chordotonal organ is thought to be functionally homologous to muscle spindles. The word was coined by Vitus Graber in 1882 though he interpreted them as being stretched between two points like a string, sensing vibrations through resonance.
TRPV is a family of transient receptor potential cation channels in animals. All TRPVs are highly calcium selective.
Transient receptor potential canonical 1 (TRPC1) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TRPC1 gene.
Short transient receptor potential channel 3 (TrpC3) also known as transient receptor protein 3 (TRP-3) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TRPC3 gene. The TRPC3/6/7 subfamily are implicated in the regulation of vascular tone, cell growth, proliferation and pathological hypertrophy. These are diacylgylcerol-sensitive cation channels known regulate intracellular calcium via activation of the phospholipase C (PLC) pathway and/or by sensing Ca2+ store depletion. Together, their role in calcium homeostasis has made them potential therapeutic targets for a variety of central and peripheral pathologies.
The short transient receptor potential channel 4 (TrpC4), also known as Trp-related protein 4, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TRPC4 gene.
Transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily M member 3 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TRPM3 gene.
Discs large homolog 1 (DLG1), also known as synapse-associated protein 97 or SAP97, is a scaffold protein that in humans is encoded by the SAP97 gene.
In molecular biology, a Tudor domain is a conserved protein structural domain originally identified in the Tudor protein encoded in Drosophila. The Tudor gene was found in a Drosophila screen for maternal factors that regulate embryonic development or fertility. Mutations here are lethal for offspring, inspiring the name Tudor, as a reference to the Tudor King Henry VIII and the several miscarriages experienced by his wives.
Mechanosensitive channels, mechanosensitive ion channels or stretch-gated ion channels (not to be confused with mechanoreceptors). They are present in the membranes of organisms from the three domains of life: bacteria, archaea, and eukarya. They are the sensors for a number of systems including the senses of touch, hearing and balance, as well as participating in cardiovascular regulation and osmotic homeostasis (e.g. thirst). The channels vary in selectivity for the permeating ions from nonselective between anions and cations in bacteria, to cation selective allowing passage Ca2+, K+ and Na+ in eukaryotes, and highly selective K+ channels in bacteria and eukaryotes.
David Julius is an American physiologist known for his work on molecular mechanisms of pain sensation. He is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and won the 2010 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine and the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
TRPN is a member of the transient receptor potential channel family of ion channels, which is a diverse group of proteins thought to be involved in mechanoreception. The TRPN gene was given the name no mechanoreceptor potential C (nompC) when it was first discovered in fruit flies, hence the N in TRPN. Since its discovery in fruit flies, TRPN homologs have been discovered and characterized in worms, frogs, and zebrafish.
Inactive is a TRPV channel in invertebrates. Inactive mutant flies show locomotor and hearing deficits.
The transient receptor potential Ca2+ channel (TRP-CC) family (TC# 1.A.4) is a member of the voltage-gated ion channel (VIC) superfamily and consists of cation channels conserved from worms to humans. The TRP-CC family also consists of seven subfamilies (TRPC, TRPV, TRPM, TRPN, TRPA, TRPP, and TRPML) based on their amino acid sequence homology:
- the canonical or classic TRPs,
- the vanilloid receptor TRPs,
- the melastatin or long TRPs,
- ankyrin (whose only member is the transmembrane protein 1 [TRPA1])
- TRPN after the nonmechanoreceptor potential C (nonpC), and the more distant cousins,
- the polycystins
- and mucolipins.
William Ronald Schafer is a neuroscientist and geneticist who has made important contributions to understanding the molecular and neural basis of behaviour. His work, principally in the nematode C. elegans, has used an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how small groups of neurons generate behavior, and he has pioneered methodological approaches, including optogenetic neuroimaging and automated behavioural phenotyping, that have been widely influential in the broader neuroscience field. He has made significant discoveries on the functional properties of ionotropic receptors in sensory transduction and on the roles of gap junctions and extrasynaptic modulation in neuronal microcircuits. More recently, he has applied theoretical ideas from network science and control theory to investigate the structure and function of simple neuronal connectomes, with the goal of understanding conserved computational principles in larger brains. He is an EMBO member, Welcome Investigator and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
References
- ↑ Kim, J; Chung, Y. D.; Park, D. Y.; Choi, S; Shin, D. W.; Soh, H; Lee, H. W.; Son, W; Yim, J; Park, C. S.; Kernan, M. J.; Kim, C (2003). "A TRPV family ion channel required for hearing in Drosophila". Nature. 424 (6944): 81–4. doi:10.1038/nature01733. PMID 12819662. S2CID 4426696.
- ↑ Zhang, W; Yan, Z; Jan, L. Y.; Jan, Y. N. (2013). "Sound response mediated by the TRP channels NOMPC, NANCHUNG, and INACTIVE in chordotonal organs of Drosophila larvae". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (33): 13612–7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1312477110 . PMC 3746866 . PMID 23898199.
- ↑ Lehnert, B. P.; Baker, A. E.; Gaudry, Q; Chiang, A. S.; Wilson, R. I. (2013). "Distinct roles of TRP channels in auditory transduction and amplification in Drosophila". Neuron. 77 (1): 115–28. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.11.030. PMC 3811118 . PMID 23312520.