Topic: sensory transduction

The effect of the detailed synaptic connectivity among neurons in a neural circuit on its function and the behavior of the organism, is a key question in many neural systems. C. elegans presents us with a particularly accessible system to explore these relations, thanks to its relative simplicity, the reconstruction of its connectome, and the range of molecular, imaging, and behavioral tools for studying it. We studied here the important circuit for nociception that is composed of the same set of neurons in the two sexes of C. elegans, which are connected in a sexually-dimorphic topology. As t

This study is aimed to understand sensory nerve endings’ functional organization and morphology in the adult mouse cornea. Free nerve endings are essential for the sensory transduction of noxious and innocuous stimuli. However, their functional organization still needs to be fully understood. To investigate this, we used GCaMP6s-based in vivo imaging of calcium signals evoked by menthol and capsaicin in corneal nerve endings of 5-6 week-old C57 mice (Fig. 1A). We then acquired 3D confocal images of their morphological structure and examined the contribution of voltage-gated calcium channels (V