Research Product

The present study describes the specificity of chemoreceptors in the walking legs of the lobster Homarus americanus. The results indicate that the peripheral coding system of this species is based at least in part on narrowly-tuned chemoreceptor cells, which represents one of the most extreme cases to date of a chemosensory system based on labeled line coding. The chemoreceptors in the legs of lobsters function in the localization and handling of food. Multi-unit neurophysiological analysis fo these receptors has demonstrated that certain amino acids and amines are highly excitatory stimuli, some peptides and proteins are moderately excitatory, whereas carbohydrates, alcohols, nucleosides, and nucleotides are in general only slightly excitatory. By single-unit extracellular recording techniques, the specificty of single primary chemoreceptors cells is described here in detail.