PMID: 11316496Apr 24, 2001Paper

Plasticity of chemotaxis revealed by paired presentation of a chemoattractant and starvation in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

The Journal of Experimental Biology
S SaekiYuichi Iino

Abstract

While the basic functioning of the nervous system of Caenorhabditis elegans has been extensively studied, its behavioural plasticities have not been fully explored because of the limited availability of assay systems. We report here a simple form of chemotaxis plasticity in this organism: when worms are starved on plates that contain NaCl, their chemotaxis towards NaCl falls dramatically. This conditioning requires both the presence of NaCl and the absence of a bacterial food source, indicating that it is not merely adaptation or habituation, but that it is likely to be a form of associative learning. While chemotaxis towards volatile chemoattractants does not change significantly after conditioning with NaCl, chemotaxis towards other water-soluble attractants does decrease. This suggests that an altered response of a cell or a group of cells specifically involved in chemotaxis towards water-soluble chemoattractants is responsible for the behavioural alteration. The decrease in chemotaxis occurred slowly over 3-4 h of conditioning and returned quickly to the original level when either of the conditioning stimuli, NaCl or starvation, was removed. The application of serotonin partially blocked this reduction in chemotaxis, consis...Continue Reading

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Anthelmintics

Anthelmintics or antihelminthics are a group of antiparasitic drugs that expel parasitic worms (helminths) and other internal parasites from the body by either stunning or killing them and without causing significant damage to the host. Discover the latest research on anthelmintics here.

Anthelmintics (ASM)

Anthelmintics or antihelminthics are a group of antiparasitic drugs that expel parasitic worms (helminths) and other internal parasites from the body by either stunning or killing them and without causing significant damage to the host. Discover the latest research on anthelmintics here.

Related Papers

The Journal of Neuroscience : the Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience
Yuichi Iino, Kazushi Yoshida
Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology. Part A, Molecular & Integrative Physiology
Ryuzo ShingaiTetsuya Matsuura
WormBook : the Online Review of C. Elegans Biology
C I Bargmann
© 2021 Meta ULC. All rights reserved