Integrative Modeling of Paramecium, a “Swimming Neuron”

Dr. Romain Brette
Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics,
Sorbonne University, Paris

Paramecium is a unicellular organism that swims in fresh water using cilia. When it is stimulated (mechanically, chemically, thermally, etc.), it often swims backward then turns and swims forward again: this is called the avoiding reaction. This reaction is triggered by a calciumbased action potential. For this reason, it enjoyed a period of glory in the 1970s as a model organism for neuroscience. We have developed an integrative model that links electrophysiology and behavior, quantitatively constrained by experimental data. This model is a dynamical system coupled to the environment, which allows revisiting various neuroscientific themes (perception, adaptation, learning) in the context of an autonomous system, rather than within the stimulus-response paradigm.

CRC 1461: Neurotronics
Colloquium: 28-September-2023_26, Thursday, 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm (CET), the colloquium will start at 4:00 pm

Link to the zoom meeting

Invited by Claus Hilgetag and Wilhelm Braun,
UKE Hamburg-Eppendorf, Center for Experimental Medicine,
Institute of Computational Neuroscience

Download the announcement here.