PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - DevoWorm Group
AU  - Bradly Alicea
TI  - The Emergent Connectome in <em>Caenorhabditis elegans</em> Embryogenesis
AID  - 10.1101/146035
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 146035
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/30/146035.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/30/146035.full
AB  - The relatively new field of connectomics provides us with a unique window into nervous system function. In the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, this promise is even greater due to the relatively small cellular size (302 cells) of the nervous system. While the adult C. elegans connectome has been characterized, the emergence of these networks in development has yet to be established. In this paper, we approach this problem using secondary data describing the birth times of terminally-differentiated cells as they appear in the embryo and connectomics data for nervous system cells in the adult hermaphrodite. By combining these two sources of data, we can better understand patterns that emerge in an incipient connectome. This includes identifying at what point in embryogenesis the cells of a connectome first comes into being, observing some of the earliest neuron-neuron interactions, and making comparisons between the formally-defined connectome and the embryogenetic interactome. An analysis is also conducted to root terminally-differentiated cells in their developmental cell lineage. This analysis reveals subnetworks with different properties at 300 minutes of embryogenesis. Overall, this analysis reveals important information about the birth order of specific cells, key building blocks of global connectivity, and how these structures corresponds to various embryogenetic stages during the emergence of a connectome.