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The quest for action potentials in C. elegans neurons hits a plateau

Nature Neuroscience volume 12, pages 377–378 (2009)Cite this article

The small size and high resistance of C. elegans neurons makes them sensitive to the random opening of single ion channels, probably rendering codes that are based on classical, all-or-none action potentials unworkable. The recent discovery in C. elegans of a special class of regenerative events known as plateau potentials introduces the possibility of digital neural codes. Such codes would solve the problem of representing information in nervous systems in which action potentials are unreliable.

The publication in 1986 of an essentially complete wiring diagram of the C. elegans nervous system1 raised the prospect of the first comprehensive account of the behavior of an entire organism. It quickly became apparent, however, that a wiring diagram by itself is insufficient to explain behavior, even for an organism as simple as a nematode. Clearly, one also needs to know the intrinsic electrical properties of the neurons. Do they act as passive or active nodes? If active, do they fire all-or-none action potentials, graded regenerative responses or something else? With the introduction of specialized electrophysiological methods for patch-clamping C. elegans neurons2,3,4,5, several laboratories are now addressing these questions directly. A recent study6 reported the surprising finding that the answer, at least in some C. elegans neurons, is something else.

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Figure 1: Schematic representations of regenerative events.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shawn R Lockery is at the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA. shawn@uoregon.edu,

    Shawn R Lockery

  2. Miriam B Goodman is in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.,

    Miriam B Goodman

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  1. Shawn R Lockery
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Lockery, S., Goodman, M. The quest for action potentials in C. elegans neurons hits a plateau. Nat Neurosci 12, 377–378 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0409-377

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