Integration of plasticity mechanisms within a single sensory neuron ofC. elegansactuates a memory

Age‐dependent changes in response property and morphology of a thermosensory neuron and thermotaxis behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans

“…Second, AFD calcium responses recorded from freely moving animals are sufficient to reconstruct the thermal environment and trajectories of an animal navigating on a temperature gradient (Tsukada et al, 2016). Third, recent work from one of our laboratories and others suggests that AFD generates distinct synaptic signals that are valued in the AIY interneuron to drive appropriate thermosensory behavior (Hawk et al, 2018; Kuhara et al, 2011; Nakano et al, 2020). While the calcium imaging results have hinted at the role of AFD in directing thermotaxis behaviors of young adult C. elegans , how aging affects AFD activities and influences thermotaxis behaviors is still unclear.…”

“…As GCY‐8 is localized to the microvilli (Nguyen et al, 2014), disorganized or shrunken microvilli associated with F‐actin loss may lead to redistribution of GCY‐8 and other molecules important for thermosensory transduction, such as the G protein‐coupled receptor SRTX‐1 and the CNG channel subunits TAX‐2 and TAX‐4 (Colosimo et al, 2004; Nguyen et al, 2014), which potentially change the spatiotemporal patterns of calcium dynamics. An intriguing hypothesis is that patterned AFD calcium dynamics evoked by thermal stimuli specify the valence and magnitude of synaptic signals to AIY that instruct thermotaxis behaviors (Kuhara et al, 2011; Hawk et al, 2018; Nakano et al, 2020). However, it should be noted that we did not find a correlation between deformed microvilli organization and prolonged calcium responses in AFDs of aged animals, although this conclusion should be cautioned and confirmed in future studies due to the small sample size of our experiments.…”

Glutamate signaling from a single sensory neuron mediates experience-dependent bidirectional behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans

“…In thermotaxis behavior, AIB also shows bidirectional responses to thermal stimulus caused by multiple neurotransmitters from sensory neurons (Ikeda et al, 2020). In terms of molecular mechanisms, synaptic input from AFD is regulated by nPKCε in thermotaxis (Hawk et al, 2018), whereas nPKCε activity in ASER also affects salt-concentration preference in salt chemotaxis (Adachi et al, 2010;Kunitomo et al, 2013). In its natural environment, C. elegans receives multiple sensory cues simultaneously, processes these inputs, and generates an optimal behavior based on the information.…”

“…AFD is activated by temperature rises in the range above a threshold temperature which is related to previously experienced temperature (Kimura et al, 2004). Synaptic output from AFD is regulated by conserved protein kinase C ε (PKC-ε), resulting in conversion of thermosensory information into behavioral output (Hawk et al, 2018). AIY shows opposing responses to temperature changes depending on whether the stimulus is higher or lower than the cultivated temperature, and its responses are correlated with curving bias of forward locomotion (Nakano et al, 2020).…”

Computational Geometric Analysis for <i>C. elegans</i> Trajectories on Thermal and Salinity Gradient

“…Instead, C. elegans cultivated at a given temperature will remember this temperature (Tc) and then migrate toward it when on a thermal gradient [2]. The same pattern applies to the salinity gradient as well [3]. What we would like to research is the corresponding between elegans movements with their neural activities shown by fluorescence imaging.…”