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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Nov 21.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2012 Nov 21;76(4):750–761. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.08.039

Figure 2. Quantification of undulatory dynamics.

Figure 2

(A) Worm undulatory dynamics is quantified using time-varying curvature along the body. Points along the centerline of length L can be specified in terms of fractional distance from the head (head = 0; tail = 1). The radius of curvature R can be measured at all points along the body. Curvature, κ, is the reciprocal of R. To represent bending in non-dimensional units, we calculate a normalized curvature as κ multiplied by worm length L.

(B) Video images of a worm swimming forward. A red-blue colormap illustrates alternating curvatures at fractional distance = 0.5.

(C) Kymogram of time-varying curvature illustrating retrograde bending waves along the worm represented in non-dimensional units.

(D) Bending magnitude along the body of a wild-type freely swimming worm, measured as the standard deviation of normalized curvature over time. n = 18 worms, mean ± SEM.