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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/11/981111080904.htm

In this experiment, developing feeding claws from female crabs were transplanted onto male crabs in place of their defense claws.  These transplanted claws apparently allowed the male crabs to sense chemical input that receptors on a defense claw would have been unable to detect, leading to behaviors that were more typical of female crabs.  What is very interesting is that the transplanted claws grew and formed connections with parts of the central nervous system which, in normal males, process pressure and vibration inputs rather than chemical ones.

I think that these findings are relevant to our class discussions of behavior because they illustrate the fact that different types/numbers of membrane proteins play a large part in observed behavior differences between sexes or between individuals, while also demonstrating the nervous system’s plasticity, and ability to adapt to unique structures and inputs.