Mesoscopic Organization Reveals the Constraints Governing Caenorhabditis elegans Nervous System 英文参考文献.docVIP

MesoscopicOrganizationRevealstheConstraints GoverningCaenorhabditiselegansNervousSystem RajKumarPan1,NiveditaChatterjee2,SitabhraSinha1* 1TheInstituteofMathematicalSciences,Chennai,TamilNadu,India,2VisionResearchFoundation,SankaraNethralaya,Chennai,TamilNadu,India Abstract Oneofthebiggestchallengesinbiologyistounderstandhowactivityatthecellularlevelofneurons,asaresultoftheir mutual interactions, leads to the observed behavior of an organism responding to a variety of environmental stimuli. Investigating the intermediate or mesoscopic level of organization in the nervous system is a vital step towards understandinghowtheintegrationofmicro-leveldynamicsresultsinmacro-levelfunctioning.Thecoordinationofmany differentco-occurringprocessesatthislevelunderliesthecommandandcontrolofoverallnetworkactivity.Inthispaper, wehave considered thesomatic nervoussystem of thenematode Caenorhabditis elegans,for which the entire neuronal connectivity diagram is known. We focus on the organization of the system into modules, i.e., neuronal groups having relativelyhigherconnectiondensitycomparedtothatoftheoverallnetwork.Weshowthatthismesoscopicfeaturecannot beexplainedexclusivelyintermsofconsiderationssuchas,optimizingforresourceconstraints(viz.,totalwiringcost)and communicationefficiency(i.e.,networkpathlength).Evenincludinginformationaboutthegeneticrelatednessofthecells cannot account for the observed modular structure. Comparison with other complex networks designed for efficient transport (of signals or resources) implies that neuronal networks form a distinct class. This suggests that the principal functionofthenetwork,viz.,processingofsensoryinformationresultinginappropriatemotorresponse,maybeplayinga vitalroleindeterminingtheconnectiontopology.Usingmodularspectralanalysiswemakeexplicittheintimaterelation between function and structure in the nervous system. This is further brought out by identifying functionally critical neuronspurelyonthebasisofpatternsofintra-andinter-modularc