At an 80th percentile calcium cutoff, local count tests found no clear extra three-cell activity beyond pairwise fits in two adult C. elegans maps
We tested whether three targets at one chemical synapse site had joint calcium activity beyond pairwise activity. We kept all positive nonself neuronal links in two adult C. elegans brain maps, with 180 neuron slots per map. Activity came from 21 other worms. We removed measured behavior and set a high state above each trace's 80th percentile. The test used 72 and 109 target triples, at 87 and 139 site occurrences. We fit a maximum entropy model to each three-cell distribution with all pair marginals fixed. Local references kept source-target counts within each site-size group and 2 micrometre cube fixed. These controls forced at least 81 of 87 and 131 of 139 covered occurrences. Only four and six groups could change the score. Exact enumeration gave upper-tail values of 0.674 and 0.527 for the mean excess over the pairwise fit. Both Holm values were 1.0. The score differences from the reference means were -0.0000127 and -0.000000820. The result gives no clear evidence for extra three-cell activity at shared sites in this test. The small reference space limits that conclusion. A 90th percentile test without spatial controls gave one positive unadjusted secondary tail in map 7 only. The package preserves code, aggregate activity histograms, full neuronal edge counts, source hashes, exact references, figures and repeat steps. It does not establish shared transmitter release or an absence of higher-order biological effects.
connectome · Caenorhabditis elegans · polyadic synapses · calcium activity · maximum entropy · higher-order dependence · exact enumeration · spatial controls
References
12- usesdoi:10.1038/s41586-021-03778-8
Source of full neuronal site records, neuron identities and skeleton coordinates for the two adult brain maps.
- usesdoi:10.1016/j.cell.2023.07.035
Source of neural and behavior recordings and exact cell labels.
- usesdoi:10.5281/zenodo.19388374
Fixed version 4 source archive for the activity and label inputs.
- usesElectrical links in three C. elegans maps had positive calcium correlation terms after behavior and wiring controls in 21 worms sci:sha256:b09f3c1a6080d1de06e526c73820f221c72e197b652af1ae224a632b69bafc1e
We follow its exact-label selection and short behavior regression basis, and calculate new distributions directly from the original traces.
- Target pairs at shared synapse sites had higher activity scores under 2 micrometre count controls in two adult C. elegans maps sci:sha256:c1fca56b41d5319793529f402e16cdc87b77ba352de6f76b32e0c89f1afb1c15
Earlier pair coactivity test at shared synapse sites supplied source provenance and local reference methods during planning.
- With local counts fixed, shared synapse sites had higher adjusted calcium coactivity scores in two adult C. elegans maps sci:sha256:22b4f84d11d49d4f1151bf1500c7d06334cef8771f4ba5a1bbcb51f8c4bbb840
Related pair coactivity study used the same adult anatomy and activity source. The present test asks about three-cell activity beyond pairwise fits.
- With site sizes and edge counts fixed, target pair counts for each source forced 2,974 of 3,098 three-target group counts in eight C. elegans brain maps sci:sha256:4fe3757a9aac707d9c24d41e1be39c5cd674e8fa35a9ea2781e6641c90c99dab
Related count audit showed that source-specific target-pair counts constrain most anatomical triple counts. Those pair counts are not held fixed by our reference.
- With site sizes fixed, connection and target-pair counts limited changes in site target sets to 0–4.05% in eight C. elegans brain maps sci:sha256:8bb67b891ba84160923a3a7ec8161800157136236a00dfb96cd09131dfbd4001
Related structural work bounds alternative site target sets under connection, pair and site-size constraints.
- doi:10.1038/nature04701
Prior neural maximum entropy study shows why joint activity must be compared to a pairwise model.
- doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.208102
Common input and thresholding can generate statistical dependencies beyond pairwise maximum entropy fits.
- doi:10.1002/dneu.20307
Shared miniature currents at polyadic worm neuromuscular junctions motivate the question. This is not evidence of shared release in the tested brain targets.
- doi:10.1038/s41567-026-03306-3
Recent conditional maximum entropy analysis of neural activity provides related context. Our test uses three-cell marginals and independent anatomical target sets.
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