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Researchers Create Simulation Of a Simple Worm's Neural Network (tuwien.ac.at)
ClockEndGooner writes: Researchers at the Technische Universitat Wein have created a simulation of a simple worm's neural network, and have been able to replicate its natural behavior to completely mimic the worm's natural reflexive behavior. According to the article, using a simple neural network of 300 neurons, the simulation of "the worm can find its way, eat bacteria and react to certain external stimuli. It can, for example, react to a touch on its body. A reflexive response is triggered and the worm squirms away. This behavior is determined by the worm's nerve cells and the strength of the connections between them. When this simple reflex network is recreated on a computer, the simulated worm reacts in exactly the same way to a virtual stimulation -- not because anybody programmed it to do so, but because this kind of behavior is hard-wired in its neural network." Using the same neural network without adding any additional nerve cells, Mathias Lechner, Radu Grosu, and Ramin Hasani were able to have the nematode simulation learn to balance a pole "just by tuning the strength of the synaptic connections. This basic idea (tuning the connections between nerve cells) is also the characteristic feature of any natural learning process."
they took the neural net (without the weights & biases) of a worm, but modified/trained all its parameters. it's not really related to a worm at this point. I guess all this shows is that you don't need a lot of neurons to build useful systems.
... it was the lovely folks at the Technische Universität Wien. Though I am quite sure they would welcome a glass of Wein (wine) every once in a while too.
It just so happens that C. elegans is one of the few multicellular organisms for which all cell fates during development are mostly deterministic and completely known.
The actual worm itself has exactly 302 neurons, and their connections have been mapped.
http://www.wormatlas.org/herma...