title: Altered Sensory Code Drives Juvenile-to-Adult Behavioral Maturation inCaenorhabditis elegans.
abstract: Adults perform better than juveniles in food-seeking tasks. Using the nematodeCaenorhabditis elegansto probe the neural mechanisms underlying behavioral maturation, we found that adults and juveniles require different combinations of sensory neurons to generate age-specific food-seeking behavior. We first show that adults and juveniles differ in their response to and preference for food-associated odors, and we analyze genetic mutants to map the neuronal circuits required for those behavioral responses. We developed a novel device to trap juveniles and record their neuronal activity. Activity measurements revealed that adult and juvenile AWA sensory neurons respond to the addition of diacetyl stimulus, whereas AWB, ASK, and AWC sensory neurons encode its removal specifically in adults. Further, we show that reducing neurotransmission from the additional AWB, ASK, and AWC sensory neurons transforms odor preferences from an adult to a juvenile-like state. We also show that AWB and ASK neurons drive behavioral changes exclusively in adults, providing more evidence that age-specific circuits drive age-specific behavior. Collectively, our results show that an odor-evoked sensory code is modified during the juvenile-to-adult transition in animal development to drive age-appropriate behavior. We suggest that this altered sensory code specifically enables adults to extract additional stimulus features and generate robust behavior.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies , La Jolla, CA 92037.
authors.forename: Laura A
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0669-888X
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Hale
authors.affiliation: Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies , La Jolla, CA 92037.
authors.forename: Eudoria S
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5697-9965
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
authors.forename: Alexandros K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Pantazis
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3830-1979
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chronis
authors.affiliation: Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies , La Jolla, CA 92037.
authors.forename: Sreekanth H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Chalasani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism; D002633:Chemotaxis / Q000502:physiology*; D003931:Diacetyl / Q000378:metabolism; D004926:Escherichia coli; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D011984:Sensory Receptor Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D003931:Diacetyl; D002118:Calcium
keywords: behavior; chemotaxis; development; neural circuits; sensory code