Dataset Information

The Central Complex as a Potential Substrate for Vector Based Navigation.

ABSTRACT: Insects use path integration (PI) to maintain a home vector, but can also store and recall vector-memories that take them from home to a food location, and even allow them to take novel shortcuts between food locations. The neural circuit of the Central Complex (a brain area that receives compass and optic flow information) forms a plausible substrate for these behaviors. A recent model, grounded in neurophysiological and neuroanatomical data, can account for PI during outbound exploratory routes and the control of steering to return home. Here, we show that minor, hypothetical but neurally plausible, extensions of this model can additionally explain how insects could store and recall PI vectors to follow food-ward paths, take shortcuts, search at the feeder and re-calibrate their vector-memories with experience. In addition, a simple assumption about how one of multiple vector-memories might be chosen at any point in time can produce the development and maintenance of efficient routes between multiple locations, as observed in bees. The central complex circuitry is therefore well-suited to allow for a rich vector-based navigational repertoire.

SUBMITTER: Le Moel F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6460943 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Central Complex as a Potential Substrate for Vector Based Navigation.

Le Moël Florent F Stone Thomas T Lihoreau Mathieu M Wystrach Antoine A Webb Barbara B

Frontiers in psychology 20190405

Insects use path integration (PI) to maintain a home vector, but can also store and recall vector-memories that take them from home to a food location, and even allow them to take novel shortcuts between food locations. The neural circuit of the Central Complex (a brain area that receives compass and optic flow information) forms a plausible substrate for these behaviors. A recent model, grounded in neurophysiological and neuroanatomical data, can account for PI during outbound exploratory route ...[more]

PMID: 31024377

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Project description:The central complex in the insect brain is a composite of midline neuropils involved in processing sensory cues and mediating behavioral outputs to orchestrate spatial navigation. Despite recent advances, however, the neural mechanisms underlying sensory integration and motor action selections have remained largely elusive. In particular, it is not yet understood how the central complex exploits sensory inputs to realize motor functions associated with spatial navigation. Here we report an in silico interrogation of central complex-mediated spatial navigation with a special emphasis on the ellipsoid body. Based on known connectivity and function, we developed a computational model to test how the local connectome of the central complex can mediate sensorimotor integration to guide different forms of behavioral outputs. Our simulations show integration of multiple sensory sources can be effectively performed in the ellipsoid body. This processed information is used to trigger continuous sequences of action selections resulting in self-motion, obstacle avoidance and the navigation of simulated environments of varying complexity. The motor responses to perceived sensory stimuli can be stored in the neural structure of the central complex to simulate navigation relying on a collective of guidance cues, akin to sensory-driven innate or habitual behaviors. By comparing behaviors under different conditions of accessible sources of input information, we show the simulated insect computes visual inputs and body posture to estimate its position in space. Finally, we tested whether the local connectome of the central complex might also allow the flexibility required to recall an intentional behavioral sequence, among different courses of actions. Our simulations suggest that the central complex can encode combined representations of motor and spatial information to pursue a goal and thus successfully guide orientation behavior. Together, the observed computational features identify central complex circuitry, and especially the ellipsoid body, as a key neural correlate involved in spatial navigation.

Dataset Information

The Central Complex as a Potential Substrate for Vector Based Navigation.

Publications

The Central Complex as a Potential Substrate for Vector Based Navigation.

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