C. elegans cognitive decline with age: more than just wiggling forward and backward

Caenorhabditis elegans has been at the forefront of research on mechanisms of age-related decline for the past 30 years. Despite its popularity in longevity research, C. elegans is underappreciated for its potential to study complex behaviors and the progressive decline in these functions with age. Using assays of learning and memory, we have identified genetic pathways that regulate these behaviors and identified new mechanisms to boost these functions with age in both worms and mice. Because C. elegans is so highly conserved, some of these recently described mechanisms may be good targets to prevent human cognitive decline with age.