TY  - GEN
T1  - Ca2+ activity in the HSN egg-laying command neurons and animal age is accompanied by a delay in the defecation motor program in Caenorhabditis elegans (I)
AU  - Ravi, Bhavya
AU  - Collins, Kevin M
DO  - 10.17912/micropub.biology.000093
UR  - http://beta.micropublication.org/journals/biology/micropub-biology-000093/
AB  - We have recently described an unusual rhythmic Ca2+ activity rhythm in the developing Hermaphrodite Specific Neurons (Ravi et al. 2018b). This ~50 s rhythm of HSN activity in L4.9 animals resembled the rhythm of the defecation motor program (DMP), prompting us to investigate whether there is a relationship between circuits that regulate reproduction and defecation behaviors. As shown in Figure 1A, the egg-laying HSN command neurons and VC motor neurons make and receive synapses from the excitatory GABAergic AVL and DVB motoneurons that regulate defecation (White, J.G. et al. 1986). Serotonin and Gαo signaling, which regulate egg laying behavior, can also signal to inhibit defecation (Ségalat et al. 1995; Waggoner et al. 1998; Hardaker et al. 2001; Tanis et al. 2008; Brewer et al. 2019). However, the functional relationship between what are thought to be independent motor circuits has not been examined. Because evidence shows that both the egg-laying active state and the DMP are both linked to changes in forward and reverse locomotion (Hardaker et al. 2001; Nagy et al. 2015), we reasoned there may be a similar relationship between expulsive behaviors that drive either egg laying or defecation.
PY  - 2019
JO  - microPublication Biology
ER  -