Mind of a dauer: Comparative connectomics reveals developmental plasticity

A fundamental question in neurodevelopmental biology is how flexibly the nervous system changes during development. To address this, we reconstructed the complete connectome of dauer, an alternative developmental stage of nematodes with distinct behavioral characteristics, by volumetric reconstruction and automated synapse detection using deep learning. With the basic architecture of the nervous system preserved, structural changes in neurons, large or small, were closely associated with connectivity changes, which in turn evoked dauer-specific behaviors such as nictation. Graph theoretical analyses revealed significant dauer-specific rewiring of sensory neuron connectivity and increased clustering within motor neurons in the dauer connectome. We suggest that the nervous system in the nematode, probably animals in general, has evolved to respond to harsh environments by reversibly developing a quantitatively and qualitatively differentiated connectome.