This study investigated spatial learning in Caenorabditis elegans; the ability to associate reinforcing cues with a location. Naive, wildtype C. elegans were trained in a microfluidic t-maze in the presence of diacetyl (a volatile attractant associated with food) and subsequently tested to see if they could associate diacetyl with one arm of the t-maze. 70-80% of the subjects chemotaxed towards diacetyl during training phase, but they randomly chose left or right when diacetyl was absent (number of subjects that chose diacetyl being under 65%). From our experiments, it is unlikely that the worms are associating diacetyl with one arm of the t-maze, but appears to be using some component of the atmosphere as a cue.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7902 |
| Date | 08 May 2009 |
| Creators | Law, Jackie WY |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, still image |
| Relation | Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conference, 2009, University of British Columbia |
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