Abstract Animals in nature seldom use their maximum performance abilities, likely in part due to context-dependent differences in performance motivation. Despite interest in the factors affecting performance expression, the physiological mechanisms underlying variation in performance motivation are poorly understood. We manipulated levels of the biogenic amine octopamine (OA) to test the hypothesis that OA drives motivation to express maximum bite force in male house crickets. We also tested the effect of antenna removal on bite force given prior evidence of potential links among antennaectomy, aggression, and OA. We found that administration of an OA antagonist, epinastine, significantly decreases realized maximum bite force, as does antenna removal. In addition, the performance decrement induced by antennaectomy is abolished by administration of excess OA, and that rescue effect is itself nullified by the simultaneous administration of epinastine. These data show that OA is an important mediator of performance in insects, and thus of performance motivation, and potentially a promising candidate for the short term manipulation of performance.

中文翻译：

---

最大性能表达受章鱼胺和去除 Acheta domesticus 触角的影响

摘要自然界中的动物很少使用其最大的表现能力，部分原因可能是表现动机的上下文相关差异。尽管对影响表现表达的因素感兴趣，但对表现动机变化的生理机制知之甚少。我们操纵了生物胺章鱼胺 (OA) 的水平，以检验 OA 驱动雄性家蟋蟀表达最大咬合力的动机的假设。鉴于先前证据表明天线切除术、攻击性和 OA 之间存在潜在联系，我们还测试了天线移除对咬合力的影响。我们发现给予 OA 拮抗剂依匹斯汀会显着降低实现的最大咬合力，去除天线也是如此。此外，由天线切除术引起的性能下降被过量的 OA 所消除，而这种拯救效果本身也因同时给予依匹斯汀而无效。这些数据表明，OA 是昆虫表现的重要中介，因此是表现动机的重要媒介，并且可能是短期操纵表现的有希望的候选者。