Learning the origins of temperature-sensivity in nervous systems

Temperature influences living organisms at all the levels, from the rates of biochemical reactions within their cells up to their overt behaviour.

Being fundamental to the physiology, animals evolved nervous systems capable of sensing temperature influencing in turn the behaviour (e.g., shivering when it is too cold).

Cnidarians (like jellyfishes or corals) represents the second phylum in the animal kingdom endowed with a nervous system.

Despite the many advancements in the field of thermal neurobiology, whether cnidarians possess neurons able to sense temperature is currently unknown.

Acquiring this information and learning the modality of temperature-sensing would shed a light on the functions of the nervous system of the last common ancestor of cnidarians and bilaterians.

With ThermoSensO, the researcher wants to address this question studying the temperature sensitivity in Hydra magnipapillata and Nematostella vectensis, two related classes of cnidarians.

The transparency of their body, the public availability of their genome, and their phylogenetic position, make the two species very attractive animal models for this task.

By associating behavioural testing with in vivo calcium-imaging and electrophysiology during delivery of thermal stimuli, the researcher wants to detect and characterise temperature-sensitive neurons and their role in these organisms.

One of the most powerful tools to understand Biology is the comparison between species (e.g., Darwinian evolution theory).

By providing to the scientific community a means of comparison with investigations in bilaterians and probing such an unexplored ground, ThermoSensO would give a very strong impulse to the field of thermal neurobiology and to the study of early nervous systems.