Abstract

The pursuit of understanding behavior has led to investigations of how genes, the environment, and the nervous system all work together to produce and influence behavior, giving rise to a field of research known as behavioral neurogenetics. This review focuses on the research journeys of two pioneers of aspects of behavioral neurogenetic research: Dr. Marla Sokolowski and Dr. Catharine Rankin as examples of how different approaches have been used to understand relationships between genes and behavior. Marla Sokolowski’s research is centered around the discovery and analysis of foraging, a gene responsible for the natural behavioral polymorphism of Drosophila melanogaster larvae foraging behavior. Catharine Rankin’s work began with demonstrating the ability to learn in Caenorhabditis elegans and then setting out to investigate the mechanisms underlying the “simplest” form of learning, habituation. Using these simple invertebrate organisms both investigators were able to perform in-depth dissections of behavior at genetic and molecular levels. By exploring their research and highlighting their findings we present ways their work has furthered our understanding of behavior and contributed to the field of behavioral neurogenetics.

摘要

对理解行为的追求导致了对基因、环境和神经系统如何共同作用以产生和影响行为的研究，从而产生了一个称为行为神经遗传学的研究领域。这篇综述着重于行为神经遗传学研究方面的两位先驱者的研究历程：Marla Sokolowski 博士和 Catharine Rankin 博士作为示例，说明了如何使用不同的方法来理解基因和行为之间的关系。Marla Sokolowski 的研究集中在觅食的发现和分析上，这是一种负责黑腹果蝇幼虫觅食行为的自然行为多态性的基因。Catharine Rankin 的工作始于展示在秀丽隐杆线虫，然后着手研究“最简单”的学习形式、习惯化背后的机制。使用这些简单的无脊椎动物，两位研究人员都能够在遗传和分子水平上对行为进行深入剖析。通过探索他们的研究并强调他们的发现，我们展示了他们的工作加深了我们对行为的理解并为行为神经遗传学领域做出贡献的方式。