response The production of a tail flip is not always beneficial. Evolution has allowed the crayfish to be more flexible by presenting several control systems that will prevent the tail flip in situations where it will most likely be unnecessary or ineffective. Eating Crayfish often find themselves in a conflicting situation where they are performing the highly motivated behavior of feeding when they suddenly receive a tail flip stimulus. Often, the crayfish will not perform a tail flip in this situation. This is because when a crayfish is actively feeding, the LGI itself is modulated by the behavior. Feeding increases the threshold for the tail flip, and even when the tail is tapped, no spikes are initiated. As a result, it takes an especially strong stimulus to elicit the tail flip. This prevents the crayfish from going hungry unless it is absolutely necessary. Carapace restraint When a crayfish is held by its carapace either in the water or in the air, it does not respond with a tail flip when it receives sensory stimuli that would normally elicit the response. This inhibitory behavior does not seem to be mediated by the abdomen. When the thorax-abdomen junction is severed, the inhibitory effect is lost and the LGI in severed abdomen generates strong spikes since its threshold had decreased substantially. This is an indication that the behavior is mediated in the brain or the thorax of the crayfish. Most non-giant and MGI tail flips are also suppressed by restraint, so only a few non-giant systems are active to allow the crayfish to carefully wriggle free. The setup of this system seems to be designed to prevent the unnecessary use of all or nothing tail flips or ineffective tail flips when the situation requires more careful maneuvering. The tail flip normally induces inhibition in an absolute fashion, such that it takes precedence over all the other tasks the segments are performing. However, during these situations, the effectiveness of the tail flip is reduced, so the inhibitory processes need to occur in a relative manner and a tail flip should occur only if absolutely necessary. During absolute inhibition is directed by more proximal synapses controlling the spike-initiating zones of the LGI. It is most likely that during restraint or feeding, the inhibitory process is mediated by inhibitory synaptic input on distal dendrites of the LGI . As a result, these signals would have to