title: Parallel encoding of sensory history and behavioral preference during Caenorhabditis elegans olfactory learning.
abstract: Sensory experience modifies behavior through both associative and non-associative learning. In Caenorhabditis elegans, pairing odor with food deprivation results in aversive olfactory learning, and pairing odor with food results in appetitive learning. Aversive learning requires nuclear translocation of the cGMP-dependent protein kinase EGL-4 in AWC olfactory neurons and an insulin signal from AIA interneurons. Here we show that the activity of neurons including AIA is acutely required during aversive, but not appetitive, learning. The AIA circuit and AGE-1, an insulin-regulated PI3 kinase, signal to AWC to drive nuclear enrichment of EGL-4 during conditioning. Odor exposure shifts the AWC dynamic range to higher odor concentrations regardless of food pairing or the AIA circuit, whereas AWC coupling to motor circuits is oppositely regulated by aversive and appetitive learning. These results suggest that non-associative sensory adaptation in AWC encodes odor history, while associative behavioral preference is encoded by altered AWC synaptic activity.
authors.affiliation: Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, New York, United States.
authors.forename: Christine E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Departments of Cell and Tissue Biology and Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, United States.
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brueggemann
authors.affiliation: Departments of Cell and Tissue Biology and Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, United States.
authors.forename: Noelle D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: L'Etoile
authors.affiliation: Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, New York, United States.
authors.forename: Cornelia I
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8484-0618
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Bargmann
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D055696:Olfactory Perception
keywords: C. elegans; adaptation; neural circuits; neuroscience; olfaction