题目：Unveiling principle of neural circuits underlying learning, memory and decision-making

报告人：Ikue Mori, Ph. D.

Professor, Group of Molecular Neurobiology, Department of Molecular Biology, Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science Nagoya University, Japan

时间：2016年05月27日 星期五 13:00-14:30

地点： 北京大学生命科学学院邓祐才报告厅

Abstract: The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is an ideal organism to address how information is processed in the neural circuit to generate a behavior. We study thermotaxis in C. elegans, a learning-based behavior, which requires the action of simple neural circuit consisting of only several types of neurons. Optogenetics, calcium imaging and behavioral analysis showed that thermosensory neuron AFD not only perceives temperature information, but also memorizes the temperature at which the animals were previously cultivated. This thermal memory is independent of synaptic transmission, since a cultured neuron AFD devoid of any synaptic connections enabled to form and maintain temperature memory. We also found that the activity of RIA interneuron, postsynaptic to AIY, is highly stochastic and is inhibited by the temperature nearly corresponding to the thermal memory in AFD. Given that RIA interneuron regulates the head movement, we suggest that the shutdown of the stochastic activity in RIA triggers switching of the behavioral modes from the exploration mode to the memory dependent exploitation mode.

邀请人：李毓龙 研究员