Differential processing of a chemosensory cue across life stages sharing the same valence state in Caenorhabditis elegans

Many chemosensory cues evoke responses of the same valence under widely varying physiological conditions. It remains unclear whether similar or distinct neural mechanisms are involved in the detection and processing of such chemosensory cues across contexts. We show that in Caenorhabditis elegans, a chemosensory cue is processed by distinct neural mechanisms at two different life stages that share the same valence state. Both starved adults and dauer larvae are attracted to carbon dioxide (CO2), but CO2 evokes different patterns of neural activity and different motor outputs at the two life stages. Moreover, the same interneuron within the CO2 microcircuit plays a different role in driving CO2-evoked motor output at the two life stages. The dauer-specific patterns of CO2-evoked activity in this interneuron require a dauer-specific gap junction complex and insulin signaling. Our results demonstrate that functionally distinct microcircuits are engaged in response to a chemosensory cue that triggers the same valence state at different life stages, revealing an unexpected complexity to chemosensory processing.