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Walter Heiligenberg: the jamming avoidance response and beyond

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Abstract

Walter Heiligenberg (1938–1994) was an exceptionally gifted behavioral physiologist who made enormous contributions to the analysis of behavior and to our understanding of how the brain initiates and controls species-typical behavioral patterns. He was distinguished by his rigorous analytical approach used in both behavioral studies and neuroethological investigations. Among his most significant contributions to neuroethology are a detailed analysis of the computational rules governing the jamming avoidance response in weakly electric fish and the elucidation of the principal neural pathway involved in neural control of this behavior. Based on his work, the jamming avoidance response is perhaps the best-understood vertebrate behavior pattern in terms of the underlying neural substrate. In addition to this pioneering work, Heiligenberg stimulated research in a significant number of other areas of ethology and neuroethology, including: the quantitative assessment of aggressivity in cichlid fish; the ethological analysis of the stimulus–response relationship in the chirping behavior of crickets; the exploration of the neural and endocrine basis of communicatory behavior in weakly electric fish; the study of cellular mechanisms of neuronal plasticity in the adult fish brain; and the phylogenetic analysis of electric fishes using a combination of morphology, electrophysiology, and mitochondrial sequence data.

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Abbreviations

CP/PPn :

Central posterior/prepacemaker nucleus

dF :

Frequency of a neighboring fish’s electric organ discharge minus frequency of the fish’s own discharge

ELL :

Electrosensory lateral line lobe

EOD :

Electric organ discharge

nE :

Nucleus electrosensorius

P :

P-type electroreceptor

Pn :

Pacemaker nucleus

SPPn :

Sublemniscal prepacemaker nucleus

T :

T-type electroreceptor

TSd :

Torus semicircularis pars dorsalis

References: Publications from the laboratory of Walter Heiligenberg (in chronological order)

1962

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1963

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1964

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1965

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1966

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1968

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1969

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1972

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1973

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1974

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1975

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1976

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1977

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1978

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1979

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1980

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1981

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1982

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1983

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1984

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1985

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1986

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1987

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1988

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1989

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1990

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1991

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Acknowledgments

We thank Masashi Kawasaki, Mark Konishi, and Marianne M. Zupanc for helpful comments on the manuscript. This article was written while G. K. H. Z. was a visiting scholar at the Department of Neurosciences of UCSD in La Jolla.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Science, International University Bremen, 750 561, 28725, Bremen, Germany

    G. K. H. Zupanc

  2. Department of Neurosciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0240, USA

    G. K. H. Zupanc & T. H. Bullock

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  1. G. K. H. Zupanc
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  2. T. H. Bullock
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Correspondence to G. K. H. Zupanc.

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T. H. Bullock: deceased 2005

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Zupanc, G.K.H., Bullock, T.H. Walter Heiligenberg: the jamming avoidance response and beyond. J Comp Physiol A 192, 561–572 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-006-0098-5

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