[Thermodynamic characteristics of the gating mechanisms of fast potassium channels of somatic membranes of snail neurons]. / Thermodinamicheskie kharakteristiki vorotnykh mekhanizmov bystrykh kalievykh kanalov somaticheskoi membrany neironov ulitki.

The fast potassium current conductance was treated as a system obeying n3 kinetics. The steady-state arrangement of the gating charges have been analyzed in terms of a Boltzmann distribution with two allowed configurations. Rate equations were obtained using the transition rate theory and assuming that each reaction was rate limited by only one energy barrier. These equations gave a simple exponential function for the voltage dependence of the rates. The single-barrier equations were used to estimate the energies of formation of the transition state.

[Reactions of the directionally sensitive optical interneurons of insects to movement of a two-dimensional pattern]. / Reaktsiia direktsionno-chuvstvitel'nykh opticheskikh interneironov nasekomykh na dvizhenie dvumernykh uzorov.

The reactions to movements of two-dimensional patterns with the same average spatial period were compared in electrophysiological experiments. Directionally-sensitive neurons in connectives of dragonflies (fam. Libellulidae) were 1.5--2 times more sensitive to movement of "dissected" patterns (checkerboards, lattice of circles, stochastic pattern) than to vertical stripes. The power of optic signal in high-frequency domain in dissected patterns is 1.4--1.8 times higher, than in a striped pattern. It is assumed that high-frequency spatial filtering in dragonflies is provided by strong lateral inhibition in retinotopic projection. Dissected and striped patterns elicited identical reactions in directionally-sensitive neurons of the dronefly Eristalis tenax; the same was stated for the locomotory optokinetic reaction of the earty-boring dung beetle Geotrupes stercorosus.