Work

What can a worm learn in a bacteria-rich habitat?

Year: 2020

Type: review

Abstract: With a nervous system that has only a few hundred neurons, Caenorhabditis elegans was initially not regarded as a model for studies on learning. However, the collective effort of the C. elegans field in the past several decades has shown that the worm displays plasticity in its behavioral response to a wide range of sensory cues in the environment. As a bacteria-feeding worm, C. elegans is highly adaptive to the bacteria enriched in its habitat, especially those that are pathogenic and pose a threat to survival. It uses several common forms of behavioral plasticity that last for different amounts of time, including imprinting and adult-stage associative learning, to modulate its interactions with pathogenic bacteria. Probing the molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying these forms of experience-dependent plasticity has identified signaling pathways and regulatory insights that are conserved in more complex animals.

Source: Journal of Neurogenetics

DOI: 10.1080/01677063.2020.1829614

Authors: He Liu, Yun Zhang

Institution: Harvard University

Language: English

Topic: Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research

Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Awards: Functional Analysis of Whole-Brain Dynamics in Learning, Regulation of Neuronal Calcium Dynamics and Learning by Mental Disease-Associated miRNAs, MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR MECHANISMS OF A NEURONAL NETWORK FOR OLFACTORY LEARNING