Worms love Coffee too! Characterizing the neural substrates that regulate odor-guided responses to coffee.

The coffee industry reaches over 80 billion US dollars in revenue partially due to the numerous chemicals that allow for coffee's highly attractive aroma and overall flavor. Many people integrate coffee into their everyday routine; therefore, understanding the attraction to coffee can facilitate, 1) the characterization of its attractive nature, and, 2) allow further understanding of how humans interpret taste and smell on a molecular and cellular level, from initial sensation to higher processing of these complex neural signals. We report that the model worm, , can smell and perform strong attraction behavior using chemotaxis towards various types of coffee odors.

Worms like catnip too! Identification of a new odor attractant in .

Organisms across the phyla are capable of sensing an array of sensory cues to control, or shape behavioral responses in order to survive in a complex environment consisting of an array of attractive and repulsive dangerous cues. Mammalian systems extensively use olfactory and gustatory behavior to fine tune sensory-dependent decision-making behaviors. Despite understanding the importance of behavioral responses to cues in the form of odors in shaping decision-making behavior.