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Editorial
. 2023 May 4:12:e87861.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.87861.

When neurons split the load

Affiliations
Editorial

When neurons split the load

Itamar Lev et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Various aspects of olfactory memory are represented as modulated responses across different classes of neurons in C. elegans.

Keywords: C. elegans; calcium imaging; computational biology; memory; memory coding; neural network; neuroscience; systems biology.

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Conflict of interest statement

IL, MZ No competing interests declared

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Conditioning induces a distributed modulation of neuronal responses to odor.
Worms were exposed to the odor butanone while food was absent (aversive conditioning; left) or present (appetitive conditioning; right); the animals formed memories of these associations, which led them to show respectively decreased or increased preference for butanone over an alternative odor diacetyl. Both types of conditioning modulate a wide range of sensory neurons (circles on outer edge; ASI, AWC and other three letter initials refer to various neuronal classes), which increase (pink) or decrease (green) their activity to varying degrees. The sensory neurons, in turn, alter the activity of three classes of interneurons (AIY, AIA and RIA) that they connect to via gap junctions or chemical synapses. The interneurons then feed information to other parts of the nervous system.

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