Electroreception

About Electroreception:

• Electroreception is the biological ability to detect weak electrostatic fields in the environment. It allows animals to sense electric fields generated by other living organisms or environmental factors.
• This ability is primarily found in certain vertebrate species, especially aquatic animals like sharks and electric fish, but is now also observed in invertebrates like fruit fly larvae.
• Electroreceptor organs were first discovered in the 1960s through physiological studies of weakly electric fish by Theodore H. Bullock, an American neuroscientist, and French scientists Thomas Szabo and Alfred Fessard.
• In some species, electroreception is also used for social communication, indicating its evolutionary importance beyond navigation or hunting.

Key Findings

• The researchers found that only a small cluster of sensory neurons located on either side of the larva’s head were involved in this electroreceptive behavior.
• Upon closer analysis under a microscope, it was confirmed that a single neuron in this head cluster was directly responsible for detecting the electric field.
• The neuron exhibited directional sensitivity—it was inhibited when the negative electrode was in front of the larva’s head and activated when the electrode was behind, which triggered the larva to reorient and move
• By eliminating other possible stimuli (confounding factors), the scientists confirmed that the larval response was specifically due to the electric field itself, not other environmental cues.
• This makes fruit fly larvae one of the few organisms, along with sharks, bees, and the platypus, known to exhibit this rare sensory ability.
• In controlled experiments, larvae immersed in an electric field were observed to reorient their movement and navigate towards the negative electrode, indicating that they could detect and respond to the direction and strength of the electric field.