This exciting paper describes a novel experimental setup for studying Caenorhabditis elegans locomotion. In a more ethologically relevant substrate, these worms crawl or swim up to ten times faster than on normal agar. Uncoordinated and touch insensitive mutant worms do not show this enhancement. Thus, this new micro-structured environment can be used for new mutant screens.
This paper puts the long tradition of studying mechanosensation in C. elegans on solid ethological footing. This new design may also provide interesting new research avenues for the studies of habituation, sensitization and other mechanosensory learning paradigms.
