Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Oct;216(2):315-332.
doi: 10.1534/genetics.120.303539.

Behavioral States

Steven W Flavell  1 , David M Raizen  2 , Young-Jai You  3
Affiliations
Review

Behavioral States

Steven W Flavell et al. Genetics. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Caenorhabditis elegans' behavioral states, like those of other animals, are shaped by its immediate environment, its past experiences, and by internal factors. We here review the literature on C. elegans behavioral states and their regulation. We discuss dwelling and roaming, local and global search, mate finding, sleep, and the interaction between internal metabolic states and behavior.

Keywords: WormBook; behavioral states; foraging; neuromodulation; satiety; sleep.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Locomotion states in C. elegans. (A) Top: roaming and dwelling locomotion states can be observed in animals exploring a bacterial food source. Bottom: neural circuitry implicated in the control of roaming and dwelling states. (B) Top: Immediately upon food removal, C. elegans animals display a 10–20 min bout of local search, followed by global search. Bottom: neural circuitry implicated in local vs. global search. (C) Top: male animals will leave a food source in search of hermaphrodite mates. Bottom: neurons and molecules implicated in mate search behaviors. Figure 1B (bottom) reprinted with permission from Neuron (Lopez-Cruz et al. 2019).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sleep states in C. elegans. (A) Top: Developmentally timed sleep is observed during each larval transition. Studies have focused on the L4 to adult transition (as shown), as well as the L1 to L2 transition. Bottom: The RIS neuron is critical in the control of developmentally timed sleep. (B) Top: Stress-induced sleep is observed in response to a wide range of cellular stressors. Bottom: The ALA and RIS neurons play central roles in the control of stress-induced sleep. The neuropeptide genes flp-11 (RIS), flp-13 (ALA), flp-24 (ALA), and nlp-8 (ALA and RIS) promote quiescence.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Behavioral states regulated by metabolic status. (A) Top: animals will at times leave their bacterial food source in search of other resources. Bottom: Food leaving rates are influenced by the animal’s hunger (past and present feeding conditions), as well as harmful environmental cues. (B) Top: animals can enter a state of satiety quiescence. This is commonly observed when starved animals are refed with a nutritious food source. Bottom: Neural circuits that control fat storage (red connections show negative feedback) and satiety quiescence.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ahmadi M., and Roy R., 2016. AMPK acts as a molecular trigger to coordinate glutamatergic signals and adaptive behaviours during acute starvation. eLife 5: e16349 10.7554/eLife.16349 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Andretic R., van Swinderen B., and Greenspan R. J., 2005. Dopaminergic modulation of arousal in Drosophila. Curr. Biol. 15: 1165–1175. 10.1016/j.cub.2005.05.025 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Antebi A., Yeh W. H., Tait D., Hedgecock E. M., and Riddle D. L., 2000. daf-12 encodes a nuclear receptor that regulates the dauer diapause and developmental age in C. elegans. Genes Dev. 14: 1512–1527. http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/14/12/1512.full.pdf - PMC - PubMed
    1. Antin J., Gibbs J., Holt J., Young R. C., and Smith G. P., 1975. Cholecystokinin elicits the complete behavioral sequence of satiety in rats. J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 89: 784–790. 10.1037/h0077040 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ardiel E. L., Yu A. J., Giles A. C., and Rankin C. H., 2017. Habituation as an adaptive shift in response strategy mediated by neuropeptides. NPJ Sci. Learn. 2: 9 10.1038/s41539-017-0011-8 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types