With terrifyingly sharp teeth arranged around a circular mouth, lampreys look about as primitive a vertebrate as you could imagine. But a new study finds that the animals have a surprising similarity to people: Lampreys have the nerve cells responsible for the “fight or flight” response. The finding challenges the idea that this part of the nervous system emerged later in evolutionary history, and it puts lampreys closer to complex vertebrates — like humans.
In past work, Caltech neuroscientist Marianne Bronner had examined the lamprey nervous system in detail, specifically the peripheral nervous system, which lies outside of brain and spinal cord, and. While studying and developing markers for these neurons, Brittany Edens, a researcher in Bronner’s lab and coauthor of the new study, noticed peripheral neurons outside the lamprey’s intestine. Bronner’s team decided to investigate.
But there were also key differences. Compared with other vertebrates, the lamprey’s sympathetic nervous system formed much later in development and the clusters of cells were smaller. Previous studies may have missed these cells by looking for them at the wrong time during embryo development. So even though the sympathetic system is present, it’s rudimentary nonetheless, Bronner says. “It’s very simplified compared to what it would be in mammals.
“As you look deeper, it becomes clear that the basic building blocks of these complex systems present in humans are, in fact, very old,” Suryanarayana says. In more complex vertebrates, this system then diversified, expanded and grew larger, he says.
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