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Caenorhabditis Elegans As An Animal Model For Behavioural Neuroscience

Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal model for behavioural neuroscience

Date : 29/11/2020

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Elpi

Uploaded by : Elpi
Uploaded on : 29/11/2020
Subject : Biology

Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal model for behavioural neuroscience

Caenorhabditis elegans is a nematode found in nature in soil and rotten fruit, approximately 1mm in length. Although it is a hermaphrodite nematode, males of the species do exist, but in very low numbers (approximately 0.1-0.2%) (Ward, S. and Carrel, 1979). Since its identification and introduction as an animal model in the lab it has been regarded as a powerful and well established model for neurosciences (Brenner, 1974). Although it has been considered a simple and hard wired animal due to its neural circuitry, C. elegans has been shown to have a wide range of behaviours and exhibits neuronal plasticity (de Bono and Maricq, 2005). These behaviours include foraging, feeding, avoidance of and taxis towards various soluble chemicals, odours, heat, oxygen, light (i.e. chemotaxis, thermotaxis, aerotaxis and phototaxis) (Ward, S., 1973 Bargmann, C. I. and Horvitz, 1991 Bargmann, C. I. et al., 1993 Hedgecock, E. M. and Russell, 1975 Ward, A. et al., 2008). However, more complicated behaviours have also been observed, such as mating, imprinting, aggregation (social feeding), sleep and drug dependence, learning and memory (White, J.Q. et al., 2007 Gray, J.M. et al., 2004 de Bono et al., 2002 Rankin et al., 1990 de Bono and Maricq, 2005).

All the behaviours mentioned above are remarkably regulated by a neural circuit of only 302 known neurons. C. elegans is the only animal whose entire nervous system has been completely reconstructed by electron microscopy and this is the major reason why it has become such a valuable model for understanding neural control of behaviour (Ward, S. et al., 1975 White, J.G. et al., 1986 Hall and Russell, 1991). Due to the amount of effort put into its circuit being reconstructed by White and colleagues, it was also one of the first animal models to have its connectome (neural wiring) created and it s connectome is still by far the most complete (Chen et al., 2006). The cell lineages of its neurons, and their neural development, have also been described to a full extent (Sulston et al., 1983 Sulston and White, 1980 Sulston and Horvitz, 1977 Hedgecock, E.M. et al., 1987). In addition, the mapped and sequenced compact genome of C. elegans, the available forward and reverse genetics and RNAi techniques, all together make it an excellent animal model for genetic manipulations (Hodgkin et al., 1998). Amongst other advantages are its short lifecycle the worm reaches adulthood within approximately three days at a temperature of 20 C. Finally, its transparent body has proved to be a major advantage when imaging, identifying and laser-ablating neurons.

Recent technical advances in the C.elegans field, such as patch clamp recording (Goodman et al., 1998), calcium imaging (Tian et al., 2009), optogenetics (Nagel et al., 2005), microfluidics (Lockery, S. R. et al., 2008) and most importantly the combination of them, have contributed to a fast pace progress of behavioural neuroscience and have made the worm an even more attractive animal model (Leifer et al., 2011 Wen et al., 2012 Akerboom et al., 2013 Li, Z. et al., 2014).

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