Serotonin promotes exploitation in complex environments by accelerating decision-making

BMC Biology

Research Article

Adam S. Brown¹  Alon Zaslaver²  Alexander Kazakov²  Kyung Suk Lee³  Erel Levine³  Dana Najjar⁴  Shachar Iwanir⁵  Stanislav Nagy⁵  David Biron⁶ 

[1] Committee on Computational Neuroscience, The University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA;Department of Genetics, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel;Department of Physics and Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA;Department of Physics and the James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA;The Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA;The Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA;Department of Physics and the James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA;

关键词: Patchy environments;    Resource distribution;    Foraging systems;    Decision-making;    Serotonin (5-HT);    C. elegans;    Serotonin;    5-HT;    Foraging;    Slowdown;    Re-feeding;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12915-016-0232-y

 received in 2015-08-06, accepted in 2016-01-21,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFast responses can provide a competitive advantage when resources are inhomogeneously distributed. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans was shown to modulate locomotion on a lawn of bacterial food in serotonin (5-HT)-dependent manners. However, potential roles for serotonergic signaling in responding to food discovery are poorly understood.ResultsWe found that 5-HT signaling in C. elegans facilitates efficient exploitation in complex environments by mediating a rapid response upon encountering food. Genetic or cellular manipulations leading to deficient serotonergic signaling resulted in gradual responses and defective exploitation of a patchy foraging landscape. Physiological imaging revealed that the NSM serotonergic neurons responded acutely upon encounter with newly discovered food and were key to rapid responses. In contrast, the onset of responses of ADF serotonergic neurons preceded the physical encounter with the food. The serotonin-gated chloride channel MOD-1 and the ortholog of mammalian 5-HT1 metabotropic serotonin receptors SER-4 acted in synergy to accelerate decision-making. The relevance of responding rapidly was demonstrated in patchy environments, where the absence of 5-HT signaling was detrimental to exploitation.ConclusionsOur results implicate 5-HT in a novel form of decision-making, demonstrate its fitness consequences, suggest that NSM and ADF act in concert to modulate locomotion in complex environments, and identify the synergistic action of a channel and a metabotropic receptor in accelerating C. elegans decision-making.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Iwanir et al. 2016