生物谷综合: 一个国际研究小组近日发现动物移动的方式与内耳中半规管(semicircular canal)的尺寸间的关系。半规管是脑颅中起平衡作用的重要部件,存在于头脑两侧。文章将发表在6月26日的Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences杂志上。
“我们在研究过程中发现,物种的运动与感觉系统间存在一种非常重要的适应性机制,而感觉系统处理着环境的相关信息。” 宾夕法尼亚州立大学的Alan Walker介绍说。研究者研究了91个独立的灵长类动物,包括分类学上所有的科。研究还包括了119种其他的物种,当中绝大多数是哺乳动物,小的有小鼠,大的有大象等,这些动物在变化的环境中会有规律性地运动。
这是首次通过大规模的研究,探索出半规管尺寸与运动能力间的联系。半规管中充满液体,并且随着动物的移动,液体也会发生流动。而液体的流动会被一些特殊的细胞感知,从而将信号发送给大脑,进一步地激发颈部和眼部肌肉的灵活运动,以便获得稳定的视觉图像。
“动物是如何运动的,是一个重要的适应性问题,”灵长类运动方面的专家Walker介绍说,“现在我们可以了解到,濒危物种的运动完全与肢结构无关。这是我们第一次运用新来源的信息验证我们之前的结论。”
(援引生命经纬)
原始出处:
Published online before print June 18, 2007
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.0704250104
OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE
The primate semicircular canal system and locomotion
( generalized least-squares analysis | mammals | vestibular system )
Fred Spoor *, Theodore Garland Jr. , Gail Krovitz , Timothy M. Ryan , Mary T. Silcox ¶, and Alan Walker ||
*Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521; eCollege, 4900 South Monaco Street, Denver, CO 80237; Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 409 Carpenter Building, University Park, PA 16802; and ¶Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, 515 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3B 2E9
Contributed by Alan Walker, May 8, 2007 (sent for review December 23, 2006)
The semicircular canal system of vertebrates helps coordinate body movements, including stabilization of gaze during locomotion. Quantitative phylogenetically informed analysis of the radius of curvature of the three semicircular canals in 91 extant and recently extinct primate species and 119 other mammalian taxa provide support for the hypothesis that canal size varies in relation to the jerkiness of head motion during locomotion. Primate and other mammalian species studied here that are agile and have fast, jerky locomotion have significantly larger canals relative to body mass than those that move more cautiously.
Fig. 1. Graphical relationship between canal sizes, body mass, and agility.
Double logarithmic plots of mean [average semicircular canal radius (SCR)]
canals against body mass for 91 primates (a) and 210 mammals (b).
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