The effect of hunger conditions on learning abilities Moderator: Netanel Cohen Laboratory: Dr. Ithai Rabinovich

Learning is a necessary action for the survival and reproduction of various organisms living in changing environments. The different animals must be aware of the different situations, learn what things benefit or harm them, and therefore change their behavior to suit their environment and ensure optimal living conditions.

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a common animal for studying the learning process. Despite its simple nervous system, the worm exhibits complex behaviors that include adaptation and response to different stimuli, memory of smells, tastes, temperatures, the presence of food, and creating and remembering associations that link them. All these characteristics make it possible to use C. elegans to investigate the effects of specific genes and neurons, learning abilities, and memory under the influence of different conditions.

In this study, I examined how hunger affects the associative learning abilities of the nematode using the chemotaxis procedure, which examined the level of attraction of the nematodes to the odor of the chemical Isoamyl alcohol, to which they are naturally attracted, after the odor is coupled to Hydrochloric acid, an acid the nematodes are naturally avoid.

The results of this study indicate that after starvation of the WT species for two hours, the nematodes learned 2.5 times better than those who did not undergo starvation before the coupling of the odor with the acid. Beyond that, we can conclude that hunger adversely affects non-food-related learning, and enhances food-related learning, and that the gene torc2 is significant in the associative learning process.