Navigation strategies in Caenorhabditis elegans are differentially altered by learning.

ABSTRACT: Learned olfactory-guided navigation is a powerful platform for studying how a brain generates goal-directed behaviors. However, the quantitative changes that occur in sensorimotor transformations and the underlying neural circuit substrates to generate such learning-dependent navigation is still unclear. Here we investigate learned sensorimotor processing for navigation in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans by measuring and modeling experience-dependent odor and salt chemotaxis. We then explore the neural basis of learned odor navigation through perturbation experiments. We develop a novel statistical model to characterize how the worm employs two behavioral strategies: a biased random walk and weathervaning. We infer weights on these strategies and characterize sensorimotor kernels that

SUBMITTER: Chen KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12135928 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature