Abstract
The Somatogastric Nervous System is a small central pattern generating circuit, which contains the Stomatogastric Ganglion (STG), composed of 30 neurons including the well-studied pattern-generating circuits critical for feeding in the crustaceans. Previous work in this system has shown surprising diversity and variability of ion channels and receptors in the STG (Marder E. 1976; Marder and Eisen 1984; Christie A.E. et al 1996; Schulz D.J. 2006), but little is known about their distribution within individual neurons. \r To address this, I use immunohistochemistry combined with fluorescent microscopy to map receptors and ion channels in identified STG neurons. I concentrated on four major receptors: the Crustacean cardioactive peptide receptor (CCAP), Voltage gated sodium channels; Glutamate gated chloride channels and Serotonin receptor 7. To characterize the antibodies of these receptors I used western blots to identify the molecular weight of their protein targets. \r The STG consists of motor neurons that innervate specific muscular targets that are important for the feeding behavior in the animal. The crustacean foregut consists of 42 muscles and like the STNS they are modulated by a myriad of neuromodulators and peptides (Jorge-Rivera and Marder 1996). To address this I used reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using receptor specific primers on the mRNA extracted from these muscles.