Abstract

I did not set out to study C. elegans. My undergraduate and graduate training was in Psychology. My postdoctoral work involved studying learning and memory in 1 mm diameter juvenile Aplysia californica. As a starting Assistant Professor when I attempted to continue my studies on Aplysia I encountered barriers to carrying out that work; at about the same time I was introduced to Caenorhabditis elegans and decided to investigate whether they could learn and remember. My laboratory was the first to demonstrate conclusively that C. elegans could learn and in the years since then my lab and many others have demonstrated that C. elegans is capable of a variety of forms of learning and memory.

摘要

我没有开始学习秀丽隐杆线虫。我的本科和研究生训练是心理学。我的博士后工作是研究直径为1毫米的加州少年海葵的学习和记忆。在我尝试继续进行海藻研究时，作为一名助理教授，我在开展这项工作时遇到了障碍。大约在同一时间，我认识了秀丽隐杆线虫，并决定调查他们是否可以学习和记忆。我的实验室是第一个最终证明秀丽隐杆线虫可以学习的实验室，此后的几年里，我的实验室和许多其他实验室已经证明秀丽隐杆线虫能够进行多种形式的学习和记忆。