The pharyngeal nervous system orchestrates feeding behavior in planarians
Mai Miyamoto, Miki Hattori, Kazutaka Hosoda, Mika Sawamoto, Minako Motoishi, Tetsutaro Hayashi, Takeshi Inoue, Yoshihiko Umesono
Abstract
to show that an isolated pharynx amputated from the planarian body self-directedly executes its entire sequence of feeding functions: food sensing, approach, decisions about ingestion, and intake. Gene-specific silencing experiments by RNA interference demonstrated that the pharyngeal nervous system (PhNS) is required not only for feeding functions of the pharynx itself but also for food-localization movements of individual animals, presumably via communication with the brain. These findings reveal an unexpected central role of the PhNS in the linkage between unique morphological phenotypes and feeding behavior in planarians.