[
International Worm Meeting,
2003]
This work describes a dynamical model of the neural circuitry and muscles for the pharynx of C. elegans. Our goal is to build a model of the pharyngeal neural network dynamics with respect to the generation of signals (action potentials) for controlling the feeding. We also include in the model the processing of feedback from the sensory endings in the muscles. A dynamical system of two variables is used to mimic the myogenic rhythm of the pharyngeal muscles.A set of simulations is described in detail where some connections are tuned to mimic apropriate behaviour. We also try to use a genetic algorithm to tune parameters for the system, where a population of pharynx models is evolved through random mutation and crossover.Our model is limited by the information about the pharynx dynamics that we could gather from published literature, and we were successfull in building and simulating a simple model. The simulations mimic some behaviours observed in the laboratory with respect to feeding and its control by the pharyngeal neural circuitry. In the poster, we give a detailed description of the pharyngeal aspects and behaviour that we would like to model, and describe what we can model using only published data.