Functional connectivity in the C. elegans brain*

The nematode C. elegans plays an important role in the study of nervous systems. Thanks to its unique properties, we have an exquisitely detailed knowledge of its brain, including its complete anatomical connectome, that describes the map of the connections between all the neurons in its brain. While the connectome has been instrumental in elucidating specific circuits, it has not allowed the community to fully understand whole-brain neural dynamics. Neural dynamics is governed by functional connectivity, the properties of the interactions between neurons, which include their strength, sign, direction, and temporal properties. In contrast, the connectome only tells us which neurons interact with which others. Measuring functional connectivity is therefore fundamental to understanding the brain.

I will present functional connectivity measurements in C. elegans obtained via sequential optogenetic stimulation of individual neurons and simultaneous whole-brain imaging of neural activity as a first step towards probing the relationship between neuroanatomy  and neural function.