Neural Mechanisms for Evaluating Environmental Variability in Caenorhabditis elegans
| Autor: | Ada Tong, Tatyana O. Sharpee, Sreekanth H. Chalasani, Adam J. Calhoun, James A. J. Fitzpatrick, Navin Pokala |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Předmět: |
Sensory Receptor Cells
Dopamine Glutamic Acid Sensory system Biology ENCODE Models Biological Article 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Interneurons Animals Dopamine metabolism Caenorhabditis elegans 030304 developmental biology 0303 health sciences Communication Neuronal Plasticity Behavior Animal business.industry General Neuroscience Feeding Behavior biology.organism_classification Adaptation Physiological Behavioral modeling Glutamic acid metabolism Adaptation business Neuroscience 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Food environment |
| Zdroj: | Neuron. (2):428-441 |
| ISSN: | 0896-6273 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.03.026 |
| Popis: | SUMMARY The ability to evaluate variability in the environment is vital for making optimal behavioral decisions. Here we show that Caenorhabditis elegans evaluates variability in its food environment and modifies its future behavior accordingly. We derive a behavioral model that reveals a critical period over which information about the food environment is acquired and predicts future search behavior. We also identify a pair of high-threshold sensory neurons that encode variability in food concentration and the downstream dopamine-dependent circuit that generates appropriate search behavior upon removal from food. Further, we show that CREB is required in a subset of interneurons and determines the timescale over which the variability is integrated. Interestingly, the variability circuit is a subset of a larger circuit driving search behavior, showing that learning directly modifies the very same neurons driving behavior. Our study reveals how a neural circuit decodes environmental variability to generate contextually appropriate decisions. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|