{"id":33900,"date":"2022-03-07T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vermont.salk.edu\/?post_type=disclosure&p=33900"},"modified":"2024-01-30T14:26:36","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T22:26:36","slug":"tiny-worms-make-complex-decisions-too","status":"publish","type":"disclosure","link":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/tiny-worms-make-complex-decisions-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny worms make complex decisions, too"},"content":{"rendered":"

LA JOLLA\u2014How does an animal make decisions? Scientists have spent decades trying to answer this question by focusing on the cells and connections of the brain that might be involved. Salk scientists are taking a different approach\u2014analyzing behavior, not neurons. They were surprised to find that worms can take multiple factors into account and choose between two different actions, despite having only 302 neurons compared to approximately 86 billion in humans.<\/p>\n

\"C.
C. elegans<\/em> worm (right) escaping the predatory P. pacificus<\/em> worm (left).
Click here<\/a> for a high-resolution image.
Credit: Salk Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The findings, published in Current Biology<\/em><\/a> on March 7, 2022, have important implications for the way researchers assess motivation and cognitive abilities in animals. What\u2019s more, the study demonstrates that complex decision-making capabilities could be encoded in small biological and artificial networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study shows you can use a simple system such as the worm to study something complex, like goal-directed decision-making. We also demonstrated that behavior can tell us a lot about how the brain works,\u201d says senior author Sreekanth Chalasani<\/a>, associate professor in Salk\u2019s Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory. \u201cEven simple systems like worms have different strategies, and they can choose between those strategies, deciding which one works well for them in a given situation. That provides a framework for understanding how these decisions are made in more complex systems, such as humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether eating prey or defending its food source, the predatory worm Pristionchus pacificus<\/em> relies on biting. The team\u2019s challenge was to determine the worm\u2019s intentions when it bites.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that P. pacificus<\/em> chooses between two foraging strategies for biting its prey and competitor, another worm called Caenorhabditis elegans<\/em>: 1) predatory strategy, in which its goal for biting is to kill prey, or 2) territorial strategy, in which biting is instead used to force C. elegans<\/em> away from a food source. P. pacificus <\/em>chooses the predatory strategy against larval C. elegans<\/em>, which is easy to kill. In contrast, P. pacificus<\/em> selects the territorial strategy against adult C. elegans<\/em>, which is difficult to kill and outcompetes P. pacificus<\/em> for food.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left: Sreekanth Chalasani and Kathleen Quach
Click here<\/a> for a high-resolution image.
Credit: Salk Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To the team, it appeared that P. pacificus <\/em>weighed the costs and benefits of multiple potential outcomes of an action\u2014behavior that\u2019s familiar in vertebrates but unexpected in a worm.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientists have always assumed that worms were simple\u2014when P. pacificus<\/em> bites we thought that was always for a singular predatory purpose,\u201d says first author Kathleen Quach, a postdoctoral fellow in Chalasani\u2019s lab. \u201cActually, P. pacificus<\/em> is versatile and can use the same action, biting C. elegans<\/em>, to achieve different long-term goals. I was surprised to find that P. pacificus <\/em>could leverage what seemed like failed predation into successful and goal-directed territoriality.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the future, the scientists would like to determine which of P. pacificus<\/em>\u2019 cost-benefit calculations are hard-wired or flexible. They hope more research like this will help further uncover the molecular underpinnings of decision-making.<\/p>\n

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (5R01MH113905), the W.M. Keck Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Salk Women & Science and a Paul F. Glenn Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":33921,"template":"","faculty":[77],"disease-research":[124],"class_list":["post-33900","disclosure","type-disclosure","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","faculty-sreekanth-chalasani","disease-research-neuroscience-and-neurological-disorders"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTiny worms make complex decisions, too - Salk Institute for Biological Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/tiny-worms-make-complex-decisions-too\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"zh_CN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tiny worms make complex decisions, too - Salk Institute for Biological Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"LA JOLLA\u2014How does an animal make decisions? 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