RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 From Single Neurons to Behavior in the Jellyfish Aurelia aurita JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 698548 DO 10.1101/698548 A1 Fabian Pallasdies A1 Sven Goedeke A1 Wilhelm Braun A1 Raoul-Martin Memmesheimer YR 2019 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/11/698548.abstract AB Jellyfish nerve nets provide insight into the origins of nervous systems, as both their taxonomic position and their evolutionary age imply that jellyfish resemble some of the earliest neuron-bearing, actively-swimming animals. Here we develop the first neuronal network model for the nerve nets of jellyfish. Specifically, we focus on the moon jelly Aurelia aurita and the control of its energy-eZcient swimming motion. The proposed single neuron model disentangles the contributions of different currents to a spike. The network model identifies factors ensuring non-pathological activity and suggests an optimization for the transmission of signals. After modeling the jellyfish’s muscle system and its bell in a hydrodynamic environment, we explore the swimming elicited by neural activity. We find that different delays between nerve net activations lead to well-controlled, differently directed movements. Our model bridges the scales from single neurons to behavior, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of jellyfish neural control.