This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Ever wonder what goes on inside the brain of a worm—how it processes information, responds to stimuli and perceives the world around it? Northeastern University researchers have opened up that can of worms, specifically the one containing C. elegans, a tiny roundworm that's one of the most extensively studied animals in biology.
A team of biophysicists has zoomed in on the brains of these 1-millimeter-long (0.04-inch-long) creatures, specifically observing the two sexes. Hermaphrodite worms have exactly 302 neurons, distributed throughout the entirety of the worm's nervous system. Roughly 200 of those neurons are located in the worm's head, with the rest scattered along its body and tail, including throughout its reproductive organs.
Males, on the other hand, have roughly 387. Unlike many animals, female C. elegans are actually hermaphrodites, meaning they produce both eggs and sperm and can reproduce by fertilizing their own eggs. The researchers were interested in observing the brain activity of male and hermaphrodite worms side by side as they interacted with a controlled environment, where researchers could deploy various stimuli, like odors from food and other chemical cues that indicate danger in their surroundings.
What they discovered is that those sexual differences, at the level of brain activity, run surprisingly deep. The findings could help scientists better understand how sex-specific differences in the nervous system influence behavior, reproduction and aging. And the work could provide clues about how sex differences unfold across species.
Scientists use C. elegans as a model organism to investigate biological processes that also matter in humans, from fertility to aging. Research on the worms can help illuminate how errors in chromosome division contribute to miscarriages, infertility and birth defects, and how muscle-like contractions help move eggs through the reproductive system—a process that may offer insights into how muscles function in human organs, according to research conducted by Northeastern's Cram Lab. Because the worms typically live only about 20 days, they also offer a convenient way to investigate why organisms age and whether that process can be slowed.
"As someone who studies aging, I'm curious what this means for how males and hermaphrodites age," said Javier Apfeld, an associate professor of biology at Northeastern University. In a study published in Current Biology last month, the researchers detailed how nearly every sensory neuron in the two worms' brains responded differently to at least one chemical cue. And even when two neurons reacted similarly to one particular odor, they could respond differently to another.
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