Characterization of the crawling activity of Caenorhabditis elegans using a Hidden Markov model.
Theory Biosci
; 134(3-4): 117-25, 2015 Dec.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26319806
ABSTRACT
The locomotion behavior of Caenorhabditis elegans has been studied extensively to understand the respective roles of neural control and biomechanics as well as the interaction between them. Constructing a mathematical model is helpful to understand the locomotion behavior in various surrounding conditions that are difficult to realize in experiments. In this study, we built three hidden Markov models (HMMs) for the crawling behavior of C. elegans in a controlled environment with no chemical treatment and in a formaldehyde-treated environment (0.1 and 0.5 ppm). The organism's crawling activity was recorded using a digital camcorder for 20 min at a rate of 24 frames per second. All shape patterns were quantified by branch length similarity (BLS) entropy and classified into four groups using the self-organizing map (SOM). Comparison of the simulated behavior generated by HMMs and the actual crawling behavior demonstrated that the HMM coupled with the SOM was successful in characterizing the crawling behavior. In addition, we briefly discussed the possibility of using the HMM together with BLS entropy to develop bio-monitoring systems to determine water quality.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Models, Statistical
/
Caenorhabditis elegans
/
Actigraphy
/
Gait
/
Locomotion
/
Models, Biological
Type of study:
Health_economic_evaluation
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Theory Biosci
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA
Year:
2015
Document type:
Article