> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.wormbrain.info/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.wormbrain.info/explore-wormbrain/02-the-worm/how-a-worm-decides.md).
# how a worm decides
Cells get louder or quieter. Enough of the right cells get loud, and the body moves.
That is still what happens here. We only changed what "loud" is pointed at.
## A crawl in four beats
1. **Something hits a sensor.** In soil, a chemical lands on the nose. Here, a change in price, flow, or liquidity becomes a small current on named sensory cells.
2. **The signal fans out.** Sensory cells talk to interneurons. Interneurons talk to each other. A few steps. Not a hundred.
3. **Command cells pick a side.** Forward and reverse cannot own the body at once for long. One side wins, or neither does.
4. **Motor cells bend muscle.** In a dish, the worm crawls. Here we stop at the command cells and treat that win as an order intent.
## Toward and away
The same animal walks toward food and away from a sting. Different nose cells start those two stories.
* Attractive smells tend to run through **AWA** and **AWC**, then through interneurons that favor a forward search.
* Harsh or bitter things tend to hit **ASH**, which feeds circuits that back the animal up.
That split is why a chart can be more than one number. A rising price written onto an attractive cell is a different story from the same rise written onto ASH. We had to pick those assignments. They are listed in [The translation](file:///3621209/03-the-experiment/the-translation.md).
## A modest kind of memory
Worms can learn. A smell that came with a punch gets treated differently later. That is not a diary. It is a change in how strongly some cells answer the next time the smell shows up.
Our training is in that spirit. After a stretch of trading we adjust a small set of listening strengths and leave the wiring alone. The worm does not remember "I bought at noon." It remembers, in a dull chemical way, that a pattern of nose current went with a shove from the market.
## Pause is a decision
People watch a quiet wallet and assume the system stalled. In the animal, standing still is normal. If neither command side wins, we do not invent a trade to keep the feed interesting.
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