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It sounded as if they have mapped all of the connections between neurons in previous work. Which suggests these connections are genetic rather than learned, an
by tux1968 11y ago
It sounded as if they have mapped all of the connections between neurons in previous work. Which suggests these connections are genetic rather than learned, and the same in every individual worm. While that makes studying them much easier, I find it surprising. I suppose that's how innate abilities are conferred on the next generation even in humans where many connections will indeed be individually learned/constructed. Very interesting.
- spin 11y agoYes. The worm c.elegans has 302 neurons, connected in a specific way. From the article: "For almost 30 years, the list of connections between individual neurons has been known. Despite the low number of neurons, its neuronal networks possesse a high degree of complexity and sophisticated behavioral output; the worm thus represents an animal of choice to study brain function."
- skybrian 11y agoApparently they just found two more in males: http://www.nature.com/news/surprise-mystery-neurons-found-in-male-worms-1.18558 http://www.nature.com/news/surprise-mystery-neurons-found-in...
- dekhn 11y agoYeah, C. elegans is eutelic (every instance has identical set of cells in same location) and after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sulston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sulston determined the lineage fate, scientists subsequently determined the full connectome. C. elegans is the model organism of model organisms- a simple animal with many of the properties of humans but unbelievable easy to work with in the lab and it has a long list of properties that make it really awesome for mechanistic studies.