Steven Reppert (University of Massachusetts Medical School, United States of America) has evaluated this article at Faculty of 1000 Biology and his thoughtful remarks are as given below:

"Post-traumatic stress in the caterpillar is remembered by the moth. This provocative paper shows that conditioned odor aversion - experienced by the 5th instar larva of the tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta - is held in memory during metamorphosis and remembered by the adult moth. The neural substrate for such memory thus survives metamorphosis. The authors raise the question: Could retention of bad memories (e.g. a close encounter with a predator while feeding on a host plant) influence sympatric speciation. Lepidoptera continue to fascinate researchers with each new discovery".

Reference:
1) Steven Reppert: Faculty of 1000 Biology, 10 Apr 2008 http://www.f1000biology.c...

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Best,

Niyaz Ahmed
Section Editor, PLoS ONE
Faculty Member, F1000Biology and F1000Medicine
__________

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