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Spider Web weaving skills provide clues to
aging
July 5, 2011--Young
house spiders weave webs with perfect angles
and regular patterns, but as they reach old
age their webs deteriorate, showing gaping
holes and erratic weaving.
By using spiders as a
simple model this research may provide
insight into how age affects behaviour in
other organisms, including humans.
The reason web building
skills are lost as spiders grow older may be
due to degeneration of the central nervous
system. PhD researcher, Mylène Anotaux, from
Nancy University in France, says "Our next
steps will be to understand whether
age-induced changes in the central nervous
system are behind the differences in
behaviour we have found."
"Because of the
importance of understanding the underlying
behavioural mechanisms of ageing in humans,
investigating simple animal models that
assess ageing mechanisms is essential," says
Miss Anotaux.
This research, which
will be presented at the Society for
Experimental Biology Annual Conference in
Glasgow on Saturday 2nd of July, used a
common European house spider Zygiella x-notata,
its short life span (around 12 months) and
simple nervous system making it an ideal
organism to shed light on the complexities
of how aging can affect behaviour.
The webs of the spiders
were assessed throughout their lifetime
using measures such as the regularity of web
structure, angles between the strands and
whether there were any holes.
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