Modeling Action Potentials of Body Wall Muscles in C. elegans: A Biologically Founded Computational Approach

摘要

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a model organism that despite years of intensive effort still presents researchers with numerous mysteries to explore. One of the most intriguing unanswered questions involves the function of the neural circuitry used for locomotion. There are several computational models that attempt to explain how this circuit works, but with a lack of physiological information, they rely on parameters that were derived using optimization techniques. Recent advances in electrophysiological and optogenetics have finally allowed researchers to directly measure these parameters and, not surprisingly, show that the values produced by the optimization algorithms significantly depart from reality. This work takes a first step in resolving this disparity by presenting a novel computational model of a C. elegans body wall muscle cell that is solely based on actual electrophysiological data. Unlike current models that create graded potentials, this model produces all-or-nothing action potentials, which matches in vivo measurements.