C. elegans locomotion: a reduced model

The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and the appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. I understand that failure to attribute material which is obtained from another source may be considered as plagiarism. (Signature of student) Summary The free-living nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans is an important organism for scientific study. With only 302 neurons, its neural circuit is one of the simplest of any animal, and has been comprehensively mapped. Essential to understanding the worm’s behaviour is analysis of its movement in the environments it inhabits. In attempting to better understand and characterise this behaviour several models for simulating locomotion have been used. Despite its limited neural capacity, the worm’s behaviour is surprisingly complex and difficult to reproduce in silico. Models so far have therefore mostly focused on the simple case of forward movement on a solid surface or gel. More recently, an integrated physical and neural model for locomotion in a wider variety of environments has been suggested. One variant of this model is based on a larval stage in C. elegans ’ life cycle, wher