Whether you are a person about town or a worm in a dish, life can throw all kinds of circumstances your way. What you need is a nervous system flexible enough to cope. In a new study, MIT neuroscientists show how even a simple animal can repurpose brain circuits and the chemical signals, or “neuromodulators,” in its brain to muster an adaptive response to an infection. The study therefore may provide a model for understanding how brains in more complex organisms, including ourselves, manage to use what they have to…
