Changes in Postural Syntax Characterize Sensory Modulation and Natural Variation of C. elegans Locomotion |
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Authors: | Roland F. Schwarz Robyn Branicky Laura J. Grundy William R. Schafer André E. X. Brown |
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Affiliation: | 1. European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom.; 2. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom.; 3. MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.; Northeastern University, UNITED STATES, |
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Abstract: | Locomotion is driven by shape changes coordinated by the nervous system through time; thus, enumerating an animal''s complete repertoire of shape transitions would provide a basis for a comprehensive understanding of locomotor behaviour. Here we introduce a discrete representation of behaviour in the nematode C. elegans. At each point in time, the worm’s posture is approximated by its closest matching template from a set of 90 postures and locomotion is represented as sequences of postures. The frequency distribution of postural sequences is heavy-tailed with a core of frequent behaviours and a much larger set of rarely used behaviours. Responses to optogenetic and environmental stimuli can be quantified as changes in postural syntax: worms show different preferences for different sequences of postures drawn from the same set of templates. A discrete representation of behaviour will enable the use of methods developed for other kinds of discrete data in bioinformatics and language processing to be harnessed for the study of behaviour. |
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