A mechanism for neuronal coincidence revealed in the crayfish antennule

Startle reflexes employ specialized neuronal circuits and synaptic features for rapid transmission of information from sense organs to responding muscles. Successful excitation of these pathways requires the coincidence of sensory input at central synaptic contacts with giant fiber targets. Here we describe a pathway feature in the crayfish tailflip reflex: A position-dependent linear gradation in sensory axonal conduction velocities that can ensure the coincident arrival of impulses from near-field hydrodynamic sensilla along the crayfish antennules at their synaptic contacts with central nervous elements that drive startle behavior. This provides a previously unexplored mechanism to ensure optimum responses to sudden threatening stimuli. Preliminary findings indicate that axons supplying distally located sensilla increase their diameters at least ten-fold along the antennular flagella and raise the possibility that more modest, graduated, diameter changes in axons originating from progressively more proximal sensilla along the antennule underlie the observed modifications in axonal conduction velocity.