Whole-organism behavioral profiling reveals a role for dopamine in state-dependent motor program coupling in C. elegans
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Abstract
Animal behaviors are commonly organized into long-lasting states that coordinately impact the generation of diverse motor outputs such as feeding, locomotion, and grooming. However, the neural mechanisms that coordinate these diverse motor programs remain poorly understood. Here, we examine how the distinct motor programs of the nematode C. elegans are coupled together across behavioral states. We describe a new imaging platform that permits automated, simultaneous quantification of each of the main C. elegans motor programs over hours or days. Analysis of these whole-organism behavioral profiles shows that the motor programs coordinately change as animals switch behavioral states. Utilizing genetics, optogenetics, and calcium imaging, we identify a new role for dopamine in coupling locomotion and egg-laying together across states. These results provide new insights into how the diverse motor programs throughout an organism are coordinated and suggest that neuromodulators like dopamine can couple motor circuits together in a state-dependent manner.
Data availability
Data have been uploaded to Dryad (doi:10.5061/dryad.t4b8gthzf) and are publicly available
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Behavioral and GCaMP dataDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.t4b8gthzf.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Science Foundation (IOS 1845663)
- Steven Flavell
National Science Foundation (DUE 1845663)
- Steven Flavell
National Institutes of Health (NS104892)
- Steven Flavell
JPB Foundation (PIIF,PNDRF)
- Steven Flavell
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD Young Investigator)
- Steven Flavell
JPB Foundation (Picower Fellows Award)
- Yung-Chi Huang
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Cermak et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Whole-organism behavioral profiling reveals a role for dopamine in state-dependent motor program coupling in C. elegans
eLife 9:e57093.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.57093
