Related papers: Automated, predictive, and interpretable inference…
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…
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…
Neuromechanics aims to understand the link between an animal's neural activity and its physical behaviors. Recent advances in experimental and machine learning techniques enable simultaneous recordings of neural and locomotion dynamics over…
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…
A major challenge in analyzing animal behavior is to discover some underlying simplicity in complex motor actions. Here we show that the space of shapes adopted by the nematode C. elegans is surprisingly low dimensional, with just four…
We present what we believe to be the first formal verification of a biologically realistic (nonlinear ODE) model of a neural circuit in a multicellular organism: Tap Withdrawal (TW) in \emph{C. Elegans}, the common roundworm. TW is a…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Abrupt changes in behavior can often be associated with changes in underlying behavioral states. When placed off food, the foraging behavior of C. elegans can be described as a change between an initial local-search behavior characterized…
We analyse the neural dynamics and its relation with the emergent behaviour of a robotic vehicle that is controlled by a neural network numerical simulation based on the nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The robot…
Cellular regulatory dynamics is driven by large and intricate networks of interactions at the molecular scale, whose sheer size obfuscates understanding. In light of limited experimental data, many parameters of such dynamics are unknown,…
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…
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…
Rapid advances in genetics, genomics, and imaging have given insight into the molecular and cellular basis of behaviour in a variety of model organisms with unprecedented detail and scope. It is increasingly routine to isolate behavioural…
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…
C. elegans locomotion is composed of switches between forward and reversal states punctuated by turns. This locomotory capability is necessary for the nematode to move towards attractive stimuli, escape noxious chemicals, and explore its…
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…
We investigate how locomotory behavior is generated in the brain focusing on the paradigmatic connectome of nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and on neuronal activity patterns that control forward locomotion. We map the neuronal…