As professionals study the behaviors and training techniques of large animals, it is also relevant to study and learn about small animals in order to compare and determine similarities between them. Planarians, other wise known as flatworms, are invertebrate organisms that live in the surface of most freshwater ecosystems. Dugesia Dorotocephala are large, brown planarian and the most commonly used for experiments because of their color, rapid reproduction rates, and their ability to be trained and pass their memories to their offspring through asexual reproduction.

Planarians who regenerate store memories in and out of their brains. Subsequent to preconditioning with green lights and three stages of training, planarians identify that the green light directs them to food.

In this project planarians were trained with positive reinforcement, as a behavioral strategy to teach them which LED stimuli will be associated with food. There were 4 experimental groups with three planarians, each in their own petri dishes. All planarians were care for the same, in the individual petri dishes; there were 4 mL of water, they were stored in the same place, and the experiment was carried out with the same sized device as well as the same amount of egg and LED light exposure. In all experiments each stage of training was conducted within 10 minutes. The 4 control groups followed this protocol, preconditioning with egg, no lights for 14 minutes. Stages 1 and 2 with egg, no lights in the device. Stage 3 with lights, no egg, the average movement score was 0.7: their movement is mostly random where there are no lights. The 4 experimental groups followed this protocol, preconditioning with green lights and egg for 14 minutes. Stage 1 with green light and egg on the left, the average movement score was -0.2: planarians' attraction to food is not greater than their aversion to green light. Stage 2, were the green light and egg on the left and red light on the right side, average movement score was -1.9. These results show, planarians have an greater aversive reaction to green light than their attraction to egg. Stage 3, lights and no egg, the average movement score was -2.1. Further suggesting, their movement is intentionally away from the green light. The difference in movement between untrained and trained worms was determined after stages 1 and 2. In stage 3 the control and experimental groups underwent the same procedure resulting the average score difference of -0.3. The results show the control group was prone to explore the green light; in compare, the experimental group showed an immediate aversion to the green light. For future research using different colored LED lights would be recommended. Adding more repetitions of the pre-conditioning and of all the stages as well as improving the device to make it smoother and easier for planarians to navigate and using a more powerful, reward such as liver, should also be considered.