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Planaria: Short Introduction

This chapter appears in the following book:

Planaria: A Model for Drug Action
and Abuse

Edited by: Robert B. Raffa
ISBN: TBA
» Get more information about this book at landesbioscience.com «

Chapter authors:
Robert B. Raffa


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Planarians are free‑living, nonparasitic, bilaterally symmetrical flatworms (dorsoventrally flattened). They range in size from about 3 to about 15 mm and are found throughout the world. There are several features that make planarians particularly noteworthy and valuable for pharmacologic study, including being the earliest extant example of cephalization (centralized ‘nervous system’), capacity for rather complex behavior (‘learning and memory’) and ability to regenerate.

Robert B. Raffa
Temple University School of Pharmacy

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Additional chapters from this book:

Drug Combinations and Isoboles

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This chapter discusses the quantitative pharmacology of drug combinations for drugs that produce overtly similar effects; more specifically we consider whether a combination of two agonists, or a comb...

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Néstor J. Oviedo and Michael Levin

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Opioids in Planaria

Antonio Carolei, Marco Colasanti and Giorgio Venturini

Planaria, considered the ancestor of all bilateria, including vertebrates, represents the most primitive example of centralization and cephalization of the nervous system. A large body of research per...

Catecholamines in Planaria

Antonio Carolei, Irene Ciancarelli and Giorgio Venturini

Planaria are free‑living flatworms and represent the most primitive example of centralization and cephalization of the nervous system along phylogeny. Several neurotransmitters such as dopamine,...

Analysis of Behavior in the Planarian Model

Cindy L. Nicolas, Charles I. Abramson and Michael Levin

Planaria species are powerful models for the study of drug effects and addiction on neural and cognitive function due to their tractability to cell‑biological, pharmacological and molecular̴...

Nitric Oxide in Lower Invertebrates

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Nitric oxide (NO) is considered an important signaling molecule involved in many different physiological processes, including nervous transmission, vascular regulation, immune defense and in the patho...

Planaria as Model in Drug Abuse Research

Robert B. Raffa

In some complex way, drug abuse is a physiological process that involves the modulation or alteration of one or more neurochemical pathways. These pathways are reviewed in this chapter to the extent t...

Physical Dependence and Withdrawal in Planarians

Robert B. Raffa

A quantifiable feature of drug abuse in animal models is the development of physical dependence and its expression during withdrawal (either abstinence‑ or antagonist‑induced). Withdrawal ...

Planaria: Short Introduction

Robert B. Raffa

Planarians are free‑living, nonparasitic, bilaterally symmetrical flatworms (dorsoventrally flattened). They range in size from about 3 to about 15 mm and are found throughout the world. There a...

Gene Expression in the Brain and Central Nervous System in Planarians

Katsuhiko Mineta, Kazuho Ikeo and Takashi Gojobori

In planarians, the CNS forms an inverted U‑shape consisting of a cephalic ganglion and several branches. Recent advances in molecular studies using expressed sequence tags (EST) and cDNA microar...


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