Modeling of the pharyngeal muscle in Caenorhabditis elegans based on FitzHugh-Nagumo equations

  • Authors:

  • Yuya Hattori;Michiyo Suzuki;Zu Soh;Yasuhiko Kobayashi;Toshio Tsuji

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of System Cybernetics, Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan 739-8527 and Microbeam Radiation Biology Group, Quantum Beam Science Directorate, Japan Ato ...;Microbeam Radiation Biology Group, Quantum Beam Science Directorate, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Gunma, Japan 370-1292;Department of Neurophysiology, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan 734-8551;Microbeam Radiation Biology Group, Quantum Beam Science Directorate, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Gunma, Japan 370-1292;Department of System Cybernetics, Institute of Engineering, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan 739-8527

  • Venue:
  • Artificial Life and Robotics
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

The pharyngeal pumping motion to send food to the bowel is a rhythmic movement in Caenorhabditis elegans. This paper proposes a simulation-based approach to investigate the mechanisms of rhythm phenomena in the pharyngeal pumping motion. To conduct the simulations, first, we developed a pharyngeal muscle model including 29 cell models which simulate the activity of each cell as a membrane potential based on FitzHugh-Nagumo equations. Then, to compare the response of the model with that of C. elegans, we calculated the electropharyngeogram (EPG), which represents the electrophysiological responses of the pharyngeal cells, using the simulated membrane potentials. The results confirmed that our model could generate the EPG similar to that measured from C. elegans. We proposed a computer simulation of the pumping motion to investigate the mechanisms of rhythm phenomena in living organisms.