RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Spatial Localization Ability of Planarians Identified Through the Light Maze Paradigm
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.11.17.516918
DO 10.1101/2022.11.17.516918
A1 Renzhi Qian
A1 Yuan yan
A1 Yixuan Zhang
A1 Yuanwei Chi
A1 Yuxuan Chen
A1 Kun Hao
A1 Zhen Xu
A1 Guang Yang
A1 Zilun Shao
A1 Yuhao Wang
A1 Xinran Li
A1 Chenxu Lu
A1 Kehan Chen
A1 Yu Pei
A1 Wenqiang Zhang
A1 Baoqing Wang
A1 Zhengxin Ying
A1 Kaiyuan Huang
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/11/17/2022.11.17.516918.abstract
AB Spatial localization ability is crucial for free-living animals to fit the environment. As shown by previous studies, planarians can be conditioned to discriminate a direction. However, due to their simplicity and primitiveness, they had never been considered to have true spatial localization ability to retrieve locations of objects and places in the environment. Here, we introduce a light maze training paradigm to demonstrate that a planarian worm can navigate to a former recognized place from the start point, even if the worm is transferred into a newly produced maze. This finding identifies the spatial localization ability of planarians for the first time, which provides clues for the evolution of spatial learning. Since the planarians have a primitive brain with simple structures, this paradigm can also provide a simplified model for a detailed investigation of spatial learning.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.