Insulin signaling plays a prominent role in regulation of dauer formation and longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Here, I show that insulin signaling also is required in benzaldehyde-starvation associative plasticity, where worms pre-exposed to the odor attractant benzaldehyde in the absence of food subsequently demonstrate a conditioned aversion response towards the odorant. Animals with mutations in ins-1, daf-2, and age-1 which encode the homolog of human insulin, insulin/IGF-1 receptor, and PI-3 kinase, respectively, have significant deficits in benzaldehyde-starvation associative plasticity. Using a conditional allele I show that the behavioral roles of DAF-2 signaling in associative plasticity can be dissociated, with DAF-2 signaling playing a more significant role in the memory retrieval than in memory acquisition. I propose DAF-2 signaling acts as a learning specific starvation signal in the memory acquisition phase of benzaldehyde-starvation associative plasticity but functions to switch benzaldehyde-sensing AWC neurons into an avoidance signaling mode during memory retrieval.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/18817 |
| Date | 15 February 2010 |
| Creators | Lin, Chia Hsun Anthony |
| Contributors | van der Kooy, Derek |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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