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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…
Neuromorphic engineering makes use of mixed-signal analog and digital circuits to directly emulate the computational principles of biological brains. Such electronic systems offer a high degree of adaptability, robustness, and energy…
The information transfer in the thalamus is blocked dynamically during sleep, in conjunction with the occurence of spindle waves. As the theoretical understanding of the mechanism remains incomplete, we analyze two modeling approaches for a…
Artificial neural networks for motor control usually adopt generic architectures like fully connected MLPs. While general, these tabula rasa architectures rely on large amounts of experience to learn, are not easily transferable to new…
Animal behaviour depends on learning to associate sensory stimuli with the desired motor command. Understanding how the brain orchestrates the necessary synaptic modifications across different brain areas has remained a longstanding puzzle.…
Brain state regulates sensory processing and motor control for adaptive behavior. Internal mechanisms of brain state control are well studied, but the role of external modulation from the environment is not well understood. Here, we…
Gastrulation, namely cell internalization, is a significant milestone during the development of metazoans from worm to human, which generates multiple embryonic layers with distinct cell fates and spatial organizations. Although many…
Mammalian functional architecture flexibly adapts, transitioning from integration where information is distributed across the cortex, to segregation where information is focal in densely connected communities of brain regions. This…
Self-organized robots may develop attracting states within the sensorimotor loop, that is within the phase space of neural activity, body, and environmental variables. Fixpoints, limit cycles, and chaotic attractors correspond in this…
Neuronal networks provide living organisms with the ability to process information. They are also characterized by abundant recurrent connections, which give rise to strong feedback that dictates their dynamics and endows them with fading…
Recordings of whole brain activity with single neuron resolution are now feasible in simple organisms. Yet, it is still challenging to appropriately simplify such complex, noisy, and multivariate data in order to reveal general principles…
Many organisms navigate gradients by alternating straight motions (runs) with random reorientations (tumbles), transiently suppressing tumbles whenever attractant signal increases. This induces a functional coupling between movement and…
A fundamental goal of systems neuroscience is to probe the dynamics of neural activity that drive behavior. Here we present an instrument to simultaneously manipulate neural activity via Channelrhodopsin, monitor neural response via GCaMP3,…
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…
Animals possess a remarkable ability to navigate challenging terrains, achieved through the interplay of various pathways between the brain, central pattern generators (CPGs) in the spinal cord, and musculoskeletal system. Traditional…
A code-modulated motion visual evoked potential (c-MVEP) for brain-computer interfacing (BCI) is presented in this study. This paradigm uses pseudo-random sequences to visually stimulate objects using motion as an alternative to flickering.…
Stylized models of the neurodynamics that underpin sensory motor control in animals are proposed and studied. The voluntary motions of animals are typically initiated by high level intentions created in the primary cortex through a…
Humans activate muscles to shape the mechanical interaction with their environment, but can they harness this control mechanism to best sense the environment? We investigated how participants adapt their muscle activation to visual and…
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a well-known model organism used to investigate fundamental questions in biology. Motility assays of this small roundworm are designed to study the relationships between genes and behavior. Commonly,…
Brain research has been driven by enquiry for principles of brain structure organization and its control mechanisms. The neuronal wiring map of C. elegans, the only complete connectome available till date, presents an incredible opportunity…