The OpenWorm project
(http://openworm.org) is a global, online collaboration of computational and experimental neuroscientists, software developers and interested volunteers with an ambitious long-term goal: creating a cell-by-cell computer model of C. elegans which reproduces the behaviour of the real animal in as much detail as possible. The project takes a unique Open Science approach to development, making all code, data and documentation publicly available at the time of production. This will provide a community resource which consolidates our anatomical and physiological knowledge of the worm, and will allow investigators to examine the mechanistic underpinnings of how behaviour is generated by a complete nervous system. The first concrete milestone for the project is an accurate simulation of locomotion including the motor system, with realistic electrophysiology of the muscle cells and connected neurons to reproduce the crawling gait. A prototype of this simulation has been released (https://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm), and the model is being validated by comparison with crawling behaviour from experimental recordings. Current work focuses on investigating the influence of gap junctions between adjacent muscles on synchronization of their activity, and incorporation of proprioceptive feedback from stretch sensitive motoneurons. The public resources developed already by the project include: Sibernetic: a simulation engine to model the environment and the 3D body of the worm, with the ability to simulate fluids of variable viscosities and contractible elastic matter with impermeable membranes; Geppetto: a web based visualization and simulation engine which will help make the output of the project accessible through any browser;
c302: a framework for generating network models of C. elegans incorporating known connectomic data which can include model neurons of varying levels of biophysical detail; owmeta: a framework for accessing and sharing anatomical and physiological data on C. elegans, facilitating their use in computational models. The DevoWorm subproject focuses on embryogenesis and the study of comparative development between C. elegans and various vertebrate and invertebrate species. These resources, which are being used for our own research as they are developed, are available for the wider community for simulation studies at multiple scales. Experiments can be trialled in-silico before planning in-vivo experiments. Additionally, having many experimentalists as users will encourage a feedback process, helping to improve the biological realism of the OpenWorm core model.