Yifan Xu

Presented by Jeremy Dittman on behalf of Cori Bargmann

B.S., Duke University

Neural Circuit Dependence of Acute and Subacute Nociception in Caenorhabditis elegans

Most grad students experience some type of pain during their thesis work. For Yifan’s thesis, she decided to work on pain. Yifan Xu is an M.D.-Ph.D. student who conducted her thesis work in the laboratory of Cori Bargmann. Yifan’s project tackles a formidable challenge: bridging the cellular properties of pain-sensing neurons with the circuit and behavioral dynamics of C. elegans as a model nervous system.

Yifan used the major nociceptive pain receptor neuron in the worm together with quantitative imaging approaches in behaving animals as tools to analyze how different patterns of sensory input into the pain receptors drive distinct behaviors. She developed a simple logic using the known circuitry of the worm to describe how pain sensing has both deterministic and malleable components, allowing an animal to respond reliably to dangerous inputs while maintaining the flexibility to ignore less painful cues when outweighed by competing attractive cues. These studies highlight the contributions of simple cellular properties to the complex decision-making capacity of the nervous system.