MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY SEMINAR

        For several decades, feeding behavior of the sea-slug Aplysia has been studied with the long-term goal of understanding the basic computational and control principles which the central nervous system uses to generate functional behavior. In this talk I will describe some of our current work in this system using a combination of experimental and mathematical modeling techniques. This work is concerned with questions such as: How are the motor commands of the central controller coupled to the activity of the peripheral muscular effectors, through what we have called the neuromuscular transform? How do the dynamics of the controller and effectors interact to produce ongoing functional behavior? How is the neuromuscular transform modulated to allow the same neuromuscular plant to produce different behaviors in response to different environmental demands? What are the implications of the large neuromuscular variability that we have quantified in the system for the controllability and efficiency of the behavior?

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