Long-term habituation is produced by distributed training at long ISIs and not by massed training or short ISIs in Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

To begin an investigation of the cellular processes that underlie long- term memory in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, it is first necessary to determine that C. elegans is capable of retention over 24 h, and to investigate the factors that may influence the expression of long-term memory. In the present study, the effects of stimuli number, interstimulus interval (ISI), and training procedure on long-term retention of habituation were tested in C. elegans. At a long (60-sec) ISI, distributed training sessions produced long-term habituation retained for 24 h, whereas massed training sessions or training with few stimuli did not. When training was performed at a short (10-sec) ISI, long-term habituation was not detectable with testing at either a 10- or a 60-sec ISI. The long-term habituation observed after distributed training sessions at a 60-sec ISI was consistently expressed when the training procedures were varied. Thus it is clear that C. elegans can reliably express long-term retention for distributed training sessions at a 60-sec ISI, making the system a candidate for further investigations into the cellular processes supporting memory.