Chatterjee Nivedita, Sinha Sitabhra
AU-KBC Research Centre, Anna University, Chromepet, Chennai, India.
Prog Brain Res. 2008;168:145-53. doi: 10.1016/S0079-6123(07)68012-1.
The nervous system of the nematode C. elegans provides a unique opportunity to understand how behavior ('mind') emerges from activity in the nervous system ('brain') of an organism. The hermaphrodite worm has only 302 neurons, all of whose connections (synaptic and gap junctional) are known. Recently, many of the functional circuits that make up its behavioral repertoire have begun to be identified. In this paper, we investigate the hierarchical structure of the nervous system through k-core decomposition and find it to be intimately related to the set of all known functional circuits. Our analysis also suggests a vital role for the lateral ganglion in processing information, providing an essential connection between the sensory and motor components of the C. elegans nervous system.
秀丽隐杆线虫的神经系统为理解行为（“心智”）如何从生物体的神经系统（“大脑”）活动中产生提供了独特的机会。雌雄同体的线虫只有302个神经元，其所有连接（突触连接和间隙连接）均已为人所知。最近，构成其行为模式的许多功能回路已开始被识别。在本文中，我们通过k-核分解研究了神经系统的层次结构，发现它与所有已知功能回路的集合密切相关。我们的分析还表明，侧神经节在信息处理中起着至关重要的作用，为秀丽隐杆线虫神经系统的感觉和运动成分之间提供了必要的连接。
