Dr. Zhao-Wen Wang receives $2 Million NIH Grant

Using Tiny Worms to Reveal Big Truths

A tiny worm, only about one millimeter long, has been able to contribute an incredible wealth of knowledge about the neural pathways responsible for locomotion in all kinds of animals to the scientific community.

Scientists have generated a detailed wiring diagram of C. elegans locomotion neural circuit; but much still remains to be learned about how neurons in this model circuit interact at the synaptic level to produce locomotion behavior.

UConn Health professor of neuroscience Zhao-Wen Wang has received a grant for more than $2 million from the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study the function of gap junctions and chemical synapses in C. elegans neural circuit.