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.

摘要

由于神经系统只有几百个神经元，秀丽隐杆线虫最初不被视为学习研究的模型。然而，线虫领域在过去几十年的集体努力表明，蠕虫在其对环境中各种感官线索的行为反应中表现出可塑性。作为一种以细菌为食的蠕虫，秀丽隐杆线虫高度适应其栖息地中丰富的细菌，尤其是那些具有致病性并对生存构成威胁的细菌。它使用几种常见形式的持续不同时间的行为可塑性，包括印记和成人阶段的联想学习，来调节其与病原菌的相互作用。探索这些依赖于经验的可塑性形式背后的分子、细胞和电路机制，已经确定了在更复杂的动物中保守的信号通路和监管见解。