Sexual Dimorphism of Neural Signal Propagation in C. elegans

In both artificial and biological neural networks, the function of the network is highly dependent on the overall structure and the dynamics of how neural signals propagate between each node. In the brain of C. elegans, we have previously reported a technique to directly probe neural signal propagation at cellular resolution by systematically optically activating each neuron and measuring the network’s response to the perturbation. This allows us to generate a complete atlas of neural signaling between each neuron pair. We wish to extend this technique to investigate how changes to neural wiring alters the neural signaling. A natural perturbation to the neural wiring arises due to sexual dimorphism. A recently published comparison of complete neuroanatomical maps available for both male and hermaphrodite C. elegans demonstrate sex-specific circuitry in the form of sex-specific neurons and modulated synaptic strength between sex-shared neurons. We have for the first time measured signal propagation in the male brain to generate a male-specific signal propagation atlas, and now compare to the existing hermaphrodite atlas to reveal sex-specific signaling. Our measurements reveal examples of conserved and non-conserved responses in sex-shared circuitry. We will discuss preliminary findings on how sex-specific circuitry affect the overall topology of the signaling network in C. elegans.