Arvanitaki contributed to the field of neurophysiology with research that explored the giant nerve fibres in genera of gastropods, the sea hare Aplysia and the land snail Helix.
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She was married to Nick Chalazonitis, who was also a neurophysiologist; they both explored the methodology of electrophysiological activity of the nervous system of the sea hare genus Aplysia.
Some gastropods, such as the sea hare Aplysia, appear to lack respiratory pigments altogether.
Knockout studies in Aplysia sea slugs indicated that decreasing CREB function blocks long-term changes in synaptic function, but not short-term ones.
cADPR and ADPR are synthesized from NAD+ by the bifunctional ectoenzymes of the CD38 family (also includes the GPI-anchored CD157 and the specific, monofunctional ADP ribosyl cyclase of the mollusc Aplysia).
Another marine mollusc, the opisthobranch Aplysia possesses relatively small number of large nerve cells that are easily identified and mapped from individual to individual.
Kandel started to investigate the gill withdrawal reflex and postsynaptic potentials (PSP) in identified neurons in the abdominal ganglion of Aplysia.
In addition to the academic divisions, RSMAS also has several research units: the Oceans and Human Health Center, the National Resource for Aplysia, the National Center for Coral Reef Research, the Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS), and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Eric Kandel was one of the first to study the neural basis of sensitization based on his experiments observing gill withdrawal of the seaslug Aplysia in the 1960s and 1970s.
One specific example is that the gill withdrawal reflex of the Aplysia is caused by homosynaptic depression.
The theta model (otherwise known as the Ermentrout-Kopell canonical model) is a "biological neuron model" originally used to model neurons in the animal Aplysia, but later became useful in various fields of computational neuroscience.