(February 11, 2016) Members of neuroscientist Cori
Bargmann’s lab spend quite a bit of their time watching worms move around.
These tiny creatures, Caenorhabditis elegans, feed on soil bacteria, and their
very lives depend on their ability to distinguish toxic microbes from
nutritious ones. In a recent study, Bargmann and her colleagues have shown that
worms in their first larval stage can learn what harmful bacterial strains
smell like, and form aversions to those smells that last into adulthood.
Many animals are capable of making vital, lifelong memories
during a critical period soon after birth. The phenomenon, known as imprinting,
allows newly hatched geese to bond with their moms, and makes it possible for
salmon to return to their native stream after spawning. And while the learning
processes of humans may be more complex and subtle, scientists have long known
that our brain’s ability to store a memory and maintain it long-term depends on
when and how that memory was acquired.
“In the case of worms, we were fascinated to discover that
their small and simple nervous system is capable of not only remembering
things, but of forming long-term memories,” says Bargmann, who is Torsten N.
Wiesel Professor and head of the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural
Circuits and Behavior, as well as co-director of the new Kavli Neural Systems
Institute at Rockefeller. “It invites the question of whether learning
processes that happen during different life stages are biologically different.”