The response of the peptidergic neurons that control a stereotyped behavior depends on the actions of a triggering neuropeptide, downstream neuropeptides and GABA inhibitory influences.

New morphological information on the Cambrian artiopodan Acanthomeridion, including CT data, demonstrate that dorsal ecdysial sutures likely evolved multiple times within this group.

The elementary units of a fruit fly behavioral sequence are described at single-muscle resolution and shown to exhibit variability that is subject to neuromodulatory regulation.

Evolutionary reconstruction of the ecdysis pathway shows that its major elements are present in the majority of metazoans, providing evidence that they originated much earlier than currently assumed.

Using targeted functional manipulations of neural activity to map neuromodulatory connections can deliver considerable insight into the functional architecture of a behaviorally important network even in the absence of information about its synaptic connectivity.

Wings achieve plasticity in size while maintaining robust pattern via ecdysone, which elicits graded responses for growth rates and threshold responses for patterning rates, in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

A genetic oscillator composed of NHR-23 and let-7 family of microRNAs links the molting cycle timer and the heterochronic pathway to regulate the pace of molting in C. elegans and ensure that worms molt only four times.

In Drosophila melanogaster, nutrition controls body size by acting through the Forkhead Box class O (FoxO)/Ultraspiracle complex to regulate nutrition-sensitive ecdysone biosynthesis, thereby controlling the switch to stop growth.

Ecdysone-mediated repression of the TMEM16 channel subdued initiates a sensory switch in peripheral nociceptors during Drosophila larval development, increasing thermal nociceptive behavior and reducing responsiveness to ultraviolet light.

Discovery of new taxon of Saccorhytida suggests that the ground pattern of Ecdysozoa may not be elongated vermiform instead sac-like in shape.