Purpose: To see if low dose exposure to Glyphosate can cause permanent motor damage resembling diseases such as Parkinson's Disease. Hypothesis: Low doses of Glyphosate within the range of 0.5% to 1% Glyphosate will cause significant neuron damage to wild type C. elegans Methods: For my study, I used Caenorhabditis elegans in order to visualize and quantify nerve damage. I tested concentrations of 0.5%, 0.7%, 0.8%, and 1% Glyphosate solutions (dissolved in distilled water) which were tested to confirm that it would not kill the nematodes. I used two petri dishes per concentration and four control plates in every trial in order to have greater statistical accuracy. I used age synchronization to produce worms that are all at the same life stage and allow them to grow to the L2 stage. Then, the worms were exposed to 500 UL of the percent solutions within the given range. They were left exposed for 48 to 72 hours at room

temperature. After this time, all of the worms on each Petri dish had their neurons stained using a Dil dye in order to visualize the neurons. Pictures and observations were made using the fluorescent microscope, and I used the ImageJ program on a computer to analyze these pictures to estimate the fluorescence of healthy neurons. I had three trials for this experiment. Results: Concentrations of 0.7%, 0.8%, and 1% Glyphosate caused statistically significant damage to motor neurons within the C. elegans compared to the control worms Conclusion: Glyphosate is neurotoxic when exposed to C. elegans in low doses over a long period of time. Future Studies: Future experimentation would involve testing Glyphosate's connection to Parkinson's disease by observing agricultural workers who are constantly exposed to this chemical and test longitudinally if they were more likely to contract Parkinson's Disease and if it is asymptimatic.