Abstract
Even insect brains have simple structure compare to vertebrate brains, they control various complex behaviors of insects. The brain functions were regulated by neuronal properties, structures and their connectivity. So simple insect brains could be a useful model system to investigate brain mechanisms from neuron to whole brain. In our study, we focused on the neuronal circuit generating pheromone triggered walking in silkworm moth, Bombyx mori. Neuronal structure on the information pathway was extracted from brain images obtained by the laser-scanning microscope. Segmented neurons were registered into the standard brain for normalizing size and location. The ionic channel distributions were estimated from neuronal response to the current injection. Neuronal connectivity was estimated from the distance among the dendritic tips of registered neurons. The possible neuronal connection was also estimated by the regeneration of response patterns of neurons by the optimization technique. A neuronal network model is implementing on the K computer (RIKEN, AICS), to conduct real time simulation for investigating the effect of environmental changing caused by the animal movement [HPCI-ID:hp120263/hp140151].
