title: Functional organization of a neural network for aversive olfactory learning in Caenorhabditis elegans.
abstract: Many animals use their olfactory systems to learn to avoid dangers, but how neural circuits encode naive and learned olfactory preferences, and switch between those preferences, is poorly understood. Here, we map an olfactory network, from sensory input to motor output, which regulates the learned olfactory aversion of Caenorhabditis elegans for the smell of pathogenic bacteria. Naive animals prefer smells of pathogens but animals trained with pathogens lose this attraction. We find that two different neural circuits subserve these preferences, with one required for the naive preference and the other specifically for the learned preference. Calcium imaging and behavioral analysis reveal that the naive preference reflects the direct transduction of the activity of olfactory sensory neurons into motor response, whereas the learned preference involves modulations to signal transduction to downstream neurons to alter motor response. Thus, two different neural circuits regulate a behavioral switch between naive and learned olfactory preferences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Heon-ick
authors.initials: HI
authors.lastname: Ha
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hendricks
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Christopher V
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Gabel
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fang-Yen
authors.forename: Yuqi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Colón-Ramos
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Aravinthan D T
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Samuel
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000633:toxicity; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000502:physiology*; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D009833:Olfactory Pathways / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D012903:Smell / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins