Related papers: Dimensionality and dynamics in the behavior of C. …
Organisms move through the world by changing their shape, and here we explore the mapping from shape space to movements in the nematode C. elegans as it crawls on a planar agar surface. We characterize the statistics of the trajectories…
Animal behavior is often quantified through subjective, incomplete variables that may mask essential dynamics. Here, we develop a behavioral state space in which the full instantaneous state is smoothly unfolded as a combination of…
Animal behaviors are sometimes decomposable into discrete, stereotyped elements. In one model, such behaviors are triggered by specific commands; in the extreme case, the discreteness of behavior is traced to the discreteness of action…
Quantitative models of associative learning that explain the behavior of real animals with high precision have turned out very difficult to construct. We do this in the context of the dynamics of the thermal preference of C. elegans. For…
Animal locomotion is often subject to constraints arising from anatomical/physiological asymmetries. We use the nematode C.~elegans as a minimal model system to ask whether such constraints might shape locomotion patterns optimized during…
How do we capture the breadth of behavior in animal movement, from rapid body twitches to aging? Using high-resolution videos of the nematode worm $C. elegans$, we show that a single dynamics connects posture-scale fluctuations with…
The 1mm roundworm C. elegans is a model organism used in many sub-areas of biology to investigate different types of biological processes. In order to complement the n-vivo analysis with computer-based investigations, several methods have…
Recent whole-brain calcium imaging recordings of the nematode C. elegans have demonstrated that neural activity is dominated by dynamics on a low-dimensional manifold that can be clustered according to behavioral states. Despite progress in…
Caenorhabditis elegans, a free-living soil nematode, propels itself by producing undulatory body motion and displays a rich variety of body shapes and trajectories during its locomotion in complex environments. Here we show that the complex…
The neural dynamics of the nematode C. elegans are experimentally low-dimensional and correspond to discrete behavioral states, where previous modeling work has found neural proxies for some of these states. Experimental results further…
Free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a powerful genetic model, essential for investigations ranging from behavior to neuroscience to aging, and locomotion is a key observable used in these studies. However, despite the fact that…
Animals employ different strategies for relating sensory input to behavioral output to navigate sensory environments, but what strategy to use, when to switch and why remain unclear. In C. elegans, navigation is composed of 'steering' and…
We exploit the reduced space of C. elegans postures to develop a novel tracking algorithm which captures both simple shapes and also self-occluding coils, an important, yet unexplored, component of worm behavior. We apply our algorithm to…
A quantitative understanding of how sensory signals are transformed into motor outputs places useful constraints on brain function and helps reveal the brain's underlying computations. We investigate how the nematode C. elegans responds to…
Understanding physical rules underlying collective motions requires perturbation of controllable parameters in self-propelled particles. However, controlling parameters in animals is generally not easy, which makes collective behaviours of…
Limbless locomotors, from microscopic worms to macroscopic snakes, traverse complex, heterogeneous natural environments typically using undulatory body wave propagation. Theoretical and robophysical models typically emphasize body…
Undulatory locomotion of microorganisms like soil-dwelling worms and spermatozoa, in structured environments, is ubiquitous in nature. They navigate complex environments consisting of fluids and obstacles, negotiating hydrodynamic effects…
The millimeter-long soil-dwelling nematode {\it C. elegans} propels itself by producing undulations that propagate along its body and turns by assuming highly curved shapes. According to our recent study [PLoS ONE \textbf{7}, e40121 (2012)]…
An organism's ability to move freely is a fundamental behaviour in the animal kingdom. To understand animal locomotion requires a characterisation of the material properties, as well as the biomechanics and physiology. We present a…
The dynamics of complex systems generally include high-dimensional, non-stationary and non-linear behavior, all of which pose fundamental challenges to quantitative understanding. To address these difficulties we detail a new approach based…