Behavioral and neuronal mechanisms of cricket phonotaxis

Summary The auditory communication of crickets provides a model system for the analysis of the neuronal mechanisms underlying complex behavior. The song of male crickets attracts females. The necessary and sufficient parameter of the song for the female phonotaxis has been determined by a quantified behavioral analysis. Neuronal correlates of this pattern recognition exist in the cricket brain and give rise to a hypothesis on the mechanism of song pattern recognition. Causal relationships between the orientation of a cricket during phonotaxis and the activity of single identified neurons were found by monitoring and deactivating single neurons during behavior. The different roles of various identifield neurons for sound localization have been tested by this method. The plasticity of the auditory system at both the behavioral and at the neuronal level has been studied after ampytation of one ear, and a mechanism for sound localization with only one ear is proposed.