Sharing our most recent paper, in which we find that electrical synapses in C. elegans drive action selection by "filtering" sensory information. C. elegans can learn temp, move across the temp. gradient and then track that temp. How? Configuration electrical synapses www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 1/ - ThreadSky

dacolon.bsky.social • 38 days ago

Sharing our most recent paper, in which we find that electrical synapses in C. elegans drive action selection by "filtering" sensory information. C. elegans can learn temp, move across the temp. gradient and then track that temp. How? Configuration electrical synapses https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)01378-3 1/

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dacolon.bsky.social•38 days ago

This work took 10 years, and here is the behavior that caught our imagination. Worms remember, and one can train them to like a temp, and when in a gradient, they move to their preferred temp (gradient migration) and then track it (isothermal tracking, track in pink). 2/

dacolon.bsky.social•38 days ago

We did a genetic screen, and ID a mutant with a crazy phenotype: they do isotherms all the time, outside of correct context (pink tracks to the right, wt in left). The mutant has a lesion in INX-1, a gene that encodes for gap junction. Why INX-1 mutants have this phenotype? 3/

dacolon.bsky.social•38 days ago

We figured out site of action for INX-1, and it is required in a single class of interneurons called AIY. AIY are downstream of the temperature sensing neuron, AFD. There are two AIYs, and the gap junctions couple the two AIYs together. In INX-1 mutants, AIY are uncoupled! 4/

dacolon.bsky.social•38 days ago

We collaborated with Zhao-Wen Wang at UConn to show that the uncoupling of the two AIYs have consequences for AIY processing of thermo sensory info. Uncoupling AIYs increase the resistance, makes then hypersensitive to sensory input. Why isotherms? 5/

dacolon.bsky.social•38 days ago

In paper we present data in support of model in which this configuration of electrical synapses is critical for filtering sensory information, and action selection, and when animals lack the electrical synapses, they are sensitive to wrong info and get trapped in isotherms 6/

dacolon.bsky.social•38 days ago

Beautiful work from other systems showed configuration of electrical synapses are imp for computations, including coincidence detection (see https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00003.2024 & https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30824857/). We extend this to show, via behavioral genetics consequences in action selection /fin

tmoldwin.bsky.social•38 days ago

Very cool work!

matthewdubuc.bsky.social•38 days ago

Conceptually, the same vector calculus describing how C. elegans can track that gradient is same branch of vector calculus which describes maintenance of homeostasis across a COOH cell membrane, correct?

@ricardsole.bsky.social @wiringthebrain.bsky.social @hankgreely.bsky.social @paulkedrosky.com

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