Fig. 5.

Possible experimental topology for a closed-loop model of metabolic performance. Blocks represent subsystems, which are typically modeled by a system of differential equations (or transfer functions) that capture the dynamics of the underlying biological components, connected by signals, represented by arrows. Gray arrows represent potential environmental signals that can be experimentally manipulated to affect the outputs of the system either on short (fluctuations in the environment) or long (developmental) time-scales. Environmental signals may also impact the two subsystems independently, as indicated here for temperature. The topology is based on model topologies describing neural control of locomotion, with thicker lines representing potentially higher dimension signals (Roth et al. 2014).