For a nematode worm, a big lawn of the bacteria that it eats is a great place for it to disperse its eggs so that each hatchling can emerge into a nutritive environment. That’s why when a worm speedily roams about a food patch, it methodically lays its eggs as it goes. A new study by neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory investigates this example of action coordination — where egg-laying is coupled to the animal’s roaming — to demonstrate how a nervous system coordinates distinct behavioral…
