Neural and genetic mechanisms underlying behavior in C. elegans

项目摘要 我们研究的长期目标是了解感官环境如何调节动物行为。 在接下来的五年里，我们建议调查两种感觉的神经和遗传基础。 形式：温度感觉和化学感觉。温度感觉和化学感觉对于 从细菌到人类的所有生命形式的质量和生存。为了生存和繁荣，动物和 人类已经进化出了热感觉和化学感觉系统，以检测、响应和适应 环境中的温度和化学物质。热和化学感知的缺陷导致 神经和代谢紊乱。尽管如此，我们对潜在机制的理解 温度感觉和化学感觉还远未完成。例如，尽管过去两年的研究 几十年来，人们对动物如何感知热量有了越来越清晰的了解，这揭示了一个 在温度感知机制中有着显著的保守性，但对动物如何感知温度的了解要少得多。 感觉寒冷的温度。同样，在pH感觉的情况下，一种化学感觉，虽然酸 尽管我们对动物的感觉已经有了广泛的描述，但我们对动物如何在体内感受碱知之甚少。 环境在这里，我们将研究冷感觉的神经和遗传机制， 碱感C.线虫，一种强大的遗传生物，广泛用于研究感官知觉。到 为此，我们将使用多学科方法，结合行为，遗传，钙成像， 电生理分析。作为热敏和化学感受机制，特别是那些涉及 感觉通道/受体往往是进化保守的，我们的工作将提供新的见解， 哺乳动物中这些感觉模式的潜在机制以及相关的神经和代谢机制 紊乱

Project Summary The long-term goal of our research is to understand how the sensory environment regulates animal behavior. In the next five years, we propose to investigate the neural and genetic basis of two types of sensory modalities: thermosensation and chemosensation. Thermosensation and chemosensation are critical for the quality and survival of all forms of life ranging from bacteria to humans. To survive and thrive, animals and humans have evolved thermosensory and chemosensory systems to detect, respond, and adapt to temperature and chemicals in the environment. Defects in thermal and chemical perception lead to neurological and metabolic disorders. Nevertheless, our understanding of the mechanisms underlying thermosensation and chemosensation is far from complete. For example, though research in the past two decades has led to an increasingly clear understanding of how animals sense heat, which reveals a remarkable conservation in the mechanisms of thermosensation, much less is known about how animals sense cold temperatures. Similarly, in the case of pH sensation, a type of chemosensation, though acid sensation has been extensively characterized, we know very little about how animals sense alkali in the environment. Here, we will investigate the neural and genetic mechanisms underlying cold sensation and alkaline sensation in C. elegans, a powerful genetic organism widely used for the study sensory perception. To do so, we will use a multidisciplinary approach combining behavioral, genetic, calcium imaging, and electrophysiological analyses. As thermosensory and chemosensory mechanisms particularly those involving sensory channels/receptors tend to be evolutionarily conserved, our work will provide novel insights into the mechanisms underlying these sensory modalities in mammals and related neurological and metabolic disorders.