افشین بابائی

Developing a Detailed Model of the Central Nervous System of a Swimming Frog Tadpole At early stages after hatchling, xenopus tadpoles do very little and mostly rest. They start swimming forward by bending their body from side to side if they are disturbed by a moderate stimulus. The alternating contraction of trunk muscles bends the body from side to side by traveling from head towards the tail. For replicating such a behaviour, a detailed model of the entire central nervous system (CNS) has been developed. Then, the activity of motoneurons generated by this network is projected on a virtual tadpole. My main goal in this workshop is to show how biology, mathematics and computer science can work hand in hand to study sophisticated phenomena. I will start from a single neuron and explain modelling its activities as a Hodgkin—Huxley model. Then, the growth of axons and synapses are mathematically modelled to construct synaptic connections among different types of neurons. Finally, I will present some simulations of the constructed network and the virtual tadpole.