Neuromodulators: an essential part of survival

Abstract

The coordination between the animal’s external environment and internal state requires constant modulation by chemicals known as neuromodulators. Neuromodulators, such as biogenic amines, neuropeptides and cytokines, promote organismal homeostasis. Over the past several decades, Caenorhabditis elegans has grown into a powerful model organism that allows the elucidation of the mechanisms of action of neuromodulators that are conserved across species. In this perspective, we highlight a collection of articles in this issue that describe how neuromodulators optimize C. elegans survival.

Keywords:

• Octopamine
• tyramine
• dopamine
• serotonin
• FMRFamide-like peptides
• insulin-like peptides
• non-FLP
• non-ILP neuropeptides
• C. elegans; neuromodulators
• survival
• homeostasis

Acknowledgments

The authors apologize to the authors whose work we were unable to cite due to space constraints and the daunting scale of the C. elegans literature in neuromodulation. The authors would also like to thank the two reviewers for their valuable critiques of this perspective.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIH [R01 GM108962] to J. A. and [R01 AG060616 and R01 AG050653] to V. P.