C. elegansにおける機械感覚習慣化中の誘発性逆転速度可塑性に関与する神経ペプチド

Caenorhabditis elegans respond to mechanosensory taps with brief reversal responses. In past research, speed of the response was averaged over the entire reversal for each tap to analyze reversal speed habituation; however, with this measure, only a modest decrement in speed was observed. Using a more detailed breakdown of reversal speed, we found that speed is most plastic early in the reversal and stable later on. Using this analysis, we found that worms with mutations in neuropeptide genes show reduced speed plasticity during the first second of reversals, indicating peptidergic signaling may be involved in reversal speed plasticity.