Effect of starvation and high-carbohydrate diet on learning ability of Caenorhabditis elegans

Starvation and high-carbohydrate diet have a big impact on our health, while their effects on the learning ability are not so clear. Here, we used C. elegans as the model organism to investigate it. We starved the worms for 24 h or fed them with glucose since hatching, and then measured their learning ability at L4 stage using mechanosensory stimulation assay. The results showed that the learning ability was significantly decreased by starvation, while could be gradually recovered after 3 h normal feeding. After glucose treatment, the length-width ratio of worm was reduced and the learning ability was also significantly decreased. Interestingly, this effect could be passed down two generations probably through epigenetic inheritance. To understand the mechanism of these effects, age-1 and mec-3 mutants were used and they affected the learning ability differently under normal or adverse conditions. Therefore, we concluded that starvation and high-carbohydrate diet could modulate the learning ability of C. elegans, and they were regulated by different gene networks.