Whole-organism behavioral profiling reveals a role for dopamine in state-dependent motor program coupling in C. elegans
Name
elife-57093-v2.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
6.57 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
91e94d00cfb2ad186a8cce0b283bc70c
Author(s)
Cermak, Nathan
Yu, Stephanie K.
Clark, Rebekah I.
Huang, Yung-Chi
Baskoylu, Saba N
Flavell, Steven W
Flavell, Steven Willem
Date Issued
June 2020
Journal
eLife
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Citation
Cermak, Nathan et al. "Whole-organism behavioral profiling reveals a role for dopamine in state-dependent motor program coupling in C. elegans." eLife 9 (June 2020): e57093 © 2020 Cermak et al.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Animal behaviors are commonly organized into long-lasting states that coordinately impact the generation of diverse motor outputs such as feeding, locomotion, and grooming. However, the neural mechanisms that coordinate these distinct motor programs remain poorly understood. Here, we examine how the distinct motor programs of the nematode C. elegans are coupled together across behavioral states. We describe a new imaging platform that permits automated, simultaneous quantification of each of the main C. elegans motor programs over hours or days. Analysis of these whole-organism behavioral profiles shows that the motor programs coordinately change as animals switch behavioral states. Utilizing genetics, optogenetics, and calcium imaging, we identify a new role for dopamine in coupling locomotion and egg-laying together across states. These results provide new insights into how the diverse motor programs throughout an organism are coordinated and suggest that neuromodulators like dopamine can couple motor circuits together in a state-dependent manner.
MIT Department
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.57093
