Parental experience can modulate the behavior of their progeny. While the molecular mechanisms underlying parental effects or inheritance of behavioral traits have been studied under several environmental conditions, it remains largely unexplored how the...
Brain circuits endow behavioral flexibility. Here, we study circuits encoding flexible chemotaxis in C. elegans, where the animal navigates up or down NaCl gradients (positive or negative chemotaxis) to reach the salt concentration of previous growth...
Insulin-like peptides (ILPs) play highly conserved roles in development and physiology. Most animal genomes encode multiple ILPs. Here we identify mechanisms for how the forty Caenorhabditis elegans ILPs coordinate diverse processes, including...
The insulin/insulin-like peptides (ILPs) regulate key events in physiology, including neural plasticity. However, the cellular and circuit mechanisms whereby ILPs regulate learning remain largely unknown. Here, we characterize two ILPs that play...
The TGF-beta superfamily is conserved throughout metazoan, and its members play essential roles in development and disease. TGF-beta has also been implicated in adult neural plasticity. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Here we...
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is present in soils and composts, where it can encounter a variety of microorganisms. Some bacteria in these rich environments are innocuous food sources for C. elegans, whereas others are pathogens. Under laboratory...
Environmental osmolarity presents a common type of sensory stimulus to animals. While behavioral responses to osmotic changes are important for maintaining a stable intracellular osmolarity, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. In the...
Summary
Neuromodulatory cells transduce environmental information into long-lasting behavioral responses. However, the mechanisms governing how neuronal cells influence behavioral plasticity are difficult to characterize. Here, we adapted the translating...
Mothers contribute cytoplasmic components to their progeny in a process called maternal provisioning. Provisioning is influenced by the parental environment, but the molecular pathways that transmit environmental cues from mother to progeny are not well...
Olfactory integration is important for survival in a natural habitat. However, how the nervous system processes signals of two odorants present simultaneously to generate a coherent behavioral response is poorly understood. Here, we characterize circuit...
Food is critical for survival. Many animals, including the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, use sensorimotor systems to detect and locate preferred food sources. However, the signaling mechanisms underlying food-choice behaviors are poorly understood...
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans navigates toward a preferred temperature setpoint (Ts) determined by long-term temperature exposure. During thermotaxis, the worm migrates down temperature gradients at temperatures above Ts (negative thermotaxis) and...
