Worm searches for food
Can the connectome turn falling odour levels into reorientations that bring the worm to food?
What happens
Real worms find food with a strategy called klinokinesis: when the smell gets weaker they reverse and turn more often, and when it gets stronger they keep going.
Here, the olfactory neuron AWC is stimulated whenever the odour concentration at the nose drops, as AWC does in real worms. From there the signal has to travel through the wiring diagram to the command interneurons.
The nose touch reflex from the dish edge experiment is still active.
How the brain is wired to the world
The mapping is part of the experiment design. Everything between senses and motor output is the connectome.
- Odour decreasing → AWC
- Nose on the wall → ASH and FLP
- Steady locomotion drive → AVB
- Forward minus backward command activity → crawl speed and direction
- Dorsal minus ventral head motor activity → turning
Dataset: Cook et al. 2019 hermaphrodite connectome with Wang et al. 2024 transmitter atlas. About this dataset
Run it locally
Every experiment can also use the local runner, which simulates the brain on your own computer. It is required for connectomes too large for a browser.
git clone https://github.com/berkeyc/connectome-lab.git cd connectome-lab pip install -r local/requirements.txt python local/runner.py # listens on ws://localhost:8765
Then choose “Local runner” in the player controls and press Restart. Your browser may ask for permission to connect to a local device.