electrical fish are some of the most extraordinary creatures that live on this major planet , and while wraith knifefish might not be the most baneful of these brilliant sparks , they do put their own records . They can discharge electrical energy at frequencies of over 1,000 pulses per second , creating action mechanism electric potential along their cells faster thanany other animal in the existence .
The Pisces the Fishes are able to make the electric pulses using a Seth of modified motor neurons in the spinal cord , which work part of an electric organ that generates the pulses of electricity . These are generated thanks to sodium epithelial duct in the prison cell membranes . The midget pore leave positively charged sodium ions in and out of the jail cell in a regulated way , creating an activity potency that pulsate along the length of specific cell to either send a message or , in the case of brawn cells , make the cell contract .
One type of sodium distribution channel is known as a “ voltage - gated ” transmission channel , which opens and closes in response to a change in voltage along the prison cell membrane and is usually only receive in muscle tissue . shade knifefish , it turn out , can attain the high frequency activity potential of any cell type in any animal by using these modified voltage - gated channels .
In other discussion , they station a pulse down the nerve cell at a rate faster than an incredible 1,000 impulse per 2nd ( 1 kilocycle per second ) . Not only that , but they can do it spontaneously without any remark from the brain . Now , a newPLOS Biologystudy has revealed the genetics behind this ability .
To figure out how the Pisces manage this , researchers turn to their genes . By comparing the genome of the electric fish to other non - electrical Pisces , they were able-bodied to nail what changes were pass to appropriate the channels to force out so speedily .
They found that the factor that taunt for the voltage - gated sodium channels in muscle cells duplicated itself in ghostwriter knifefishsome 14.5 million year ago . But in addition to that , around 2 million yr ago a mutation in these genes imply the channels were not only being expressed in muscle cells but also in the motor neurons of the spinal cord , which now take shape part of the electric organ that prescribe the dismission frequency .
The mutant did n’t stop there , though . Further revision to the genes meant that these sodium channels , now being produce by cells that ordinarily do n’t make them , were able to open and penny-pinching at a much quicker absolute frequency than their ancestral muscle channels . This all combined to make ghost knifefish the record - breakers they are now .
You might think that this is all abstract cognition of little importance , but the investigator desire to use the entropy to give insights into the hereditary base of conditions such as epilepsy , or other inherited diseases that make musculus weakness .
