The JAR is used in a natural setting to prevent signal interference from nearby conspecifics, and allows multiple fish to navigate in the same vicinity without interference, in analogy with radio stations in the same city using different carrier frequencies. The mechanistic basis for the JAR has been studied extensively in the genus Eigenmannia by Walter Heiligenberg and colleagues, and they have mapped out completely the neural circuit which forms the substrate for the JAR in this fish . Through physiological studies they have come to understand many of the computations being performed by the neural circuitry. The JAR is an important system to study because the circuitry which underlies it is regarded by many to be the best understood vertebrate neural circuit since we can completely specify what sorts of information processing is taking place from the detection of an interfering signal to the fish's change in its discharge frequency. Click here for a summary sketch of the JAR in Eigenmannia .
More detail is given in the links below.
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