AUTHOR=Mantraratnam Vaishnavi , Bonnet Jorge , Rowe Caleb , Janko Daniel , Bolding Mark 

TITLE=X-ray perception: Animal studies of sensory and behavioral responses to X-rays

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fncel.2022.917273

DOI=10.3389/fncel.2022.917273

ISSN=1662-5102

ABSTRACT=Since their discovery, many studies have been conducted to understand the effect of X-rays on the neural function and behavior of animals. These studies have examined a broad range of acute and chronic effects and a subset of studies has attempted to determine if X-rays can produce any sensory responses. Here we review literature from the discovery of X-rays in 1895 until the present to better understand the chronology of studies of acute X-ray behavioral effects in animals and to assess the evidence for the detection of X-rays by sensory receptors in animals. We focus on the changes in appetitive and consummatory behavior, radiotaxis, behavioral arousal, and olfactory responses to X-rays that have been reported in the literature. Taken together, the reviewed literature provides a large body of evidence that X-rays can induce sensory responses in a wide variety of animals and also suggests that at least some of these responses are mediated by sensory receptors.