Caenorhabditis Elegans in Neuroscience Research

Abstract

Neuroscience tries to understand the structure and functions of the human brain, which is made up of millions of neurons and billions of synapses. It is not possible to create and examine a model for such an advanced system in a laboratory environment. For more than two decades, Caernohabditis elegans (C. elegans) has come to the fore as a useful model for understanding the behavior of neural networks, due to its characteristics similar to the human nervous system and its easily observable structure. The created models facilitate quantitative analysis of behavior and neural activities and understanding the functioning of neural networks. Thus, research can be done at both the cell and the organism level. Since the purpose of neuroscience studies is to understand how the information transmitted from sensory neurons under the influence turns into an output response by motor neurons and to understand the role of the effect in making these responses a repetitive, consistent behavior; C. elegans, which has the advantage of being the first animal whose genome has been completely sequenced, is easy to observe with different techniques, and sheds light on the mammalian neural-behavioral pattern, has been used quite efficiently in these studies. In these researches, it is thought that there has been an increase after the 2000s, depending on the developments related to the medium and characterization. Research in this area has increased exponentially from the early 2000s until 2021. When neuroscience studies with C. elegans were examined by country, it was seen that countries such as America and Germany were the leading ones. While 67 of the 245 publications made in SCI-Expanded journals on this subject were neuroscience researches, 40 of them were made by researchers working in multidisciplinary fields. In this study, the general characteristics of C. elegans and its place in neuroscience research will be mentioned and the distribution of these studies by years and countries will be evaluated.

Keywords

• Caernohabditis elegans
• Neuroscience
• Hermaphrodite
• Ectothermic
• Larvae

Sinirbilim Araştırmalarında Caenorhabditis Elegans

Abstract

Sinirbilim, milyonlarca nöron ve milyarlarca sinapstan oluşan insan beyninin yapı ve fonksiyonlarını anlamaya çalışır. Laboratuvar ortamında böylesine gelişmiş bir sistem için model oluşturmak ve incelemek mümkün değildir. Yirmi yılı aşkın süredir, insan sinir sistemine benzer özellikleri ve kolay incelenebilir yapısı nedeniyle Caernohabditis elegans (C. elegans), nöral ağların davranışını anlamak için faydalı bir model olarak öne çıkmaktadır. Oluşturulan modeller, davranış ve nöral aktivitelerin nicel analizlerinin yapılmasını, sinir ağlarının işleyişinin anlaşılmasını kolaylaştırır. Böylece hem hücre hem de organizma düzeyinde araştırmalar yapılabilmektedir. Sinirbilim çalışmalarının amacı, etki sonrası duyu nöronlarından aktarılan bilginin, motor nöronlar tarafından nasıl bir tepkiye dönüştüğünü anlamak; bu tepkilerin tekrarlı, tutarlı bir davranış haline gelmesinde etkinin rolünü kavramaktır. Genomu haritalandırılmış ilk hayvan olma avantajına sahip, farklı tekniklerle gözlenmesi mümkün ve kolay olan, memeli nöral-davranışsal örgüye ışık tutan C. elegans bu araştırmalarda oldukça verimli kullanılmaktadır. Bu araştırmalarda 2000’li yılların sonrasında, besi yeri ve karakterizasyona bağlı gelişmelere de bağlı olarak artış yaşandığı düşünülmektedir. Bu alandaki araştırmalar 2000’li yılların başından, 2021’e kadar katlanarak artmıştır. C. elegans ile yapılan sinirbilim araştırmaları ülkelere göre incelendiğinde, başı Amerika ve Almanya gibi ülkelerin çektiği görülmüştür. Bu konuda SCI-Expanded dergilerde yapılan 245 yayının 67’sini sinirbilim araştırmacıları oluştururken, 40’ını multidisipliner alanlarda çalışan araştırmacılar gerçekleştirmiştir. Bu çalışmada, C. elegans’ın genel özelliklerine ve sinirbilim araştırmalarındaki yerine değinilecek ve bu araştırmaların yıllara ve ülkelere göre dağılımları değerlendirilecektir.

Keywords

• Caernohabditis elegans
• Sinirbilim
• Hermafrodit
• Ektotermik
• Larva

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