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Nature 450, 35-36 (1 November 2007) | doi:10.1038/450035a; Published online 31 October 2007

Smell: The worm turns

Piali Sengupta1

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The worm Caenorhabditis elegans has many advantages as an experimental organism. These have been exploited to investigate how, at a single-neuron level, neural circuits transform sensory signals into behaviour.

Touching a hot stove elicits a highly predictable reflex action — you pull your hand away. But most complex behaviours are instead probabilistic in nature, being modulated by several variables, including the nature and intensity of incoming sensory signals and past experiences.

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