Related papers: The two body problem: proprioception and motor con…
Animals locomote for various reasons: to search for food, find suitable habitat, pursue prey, escape from predators, or seek a mate. The grand scale of biodiversity contributes to the great locomotory design and mode diversity. Various…
We present the case for developing the tardigrade (Hypsibius exemplaris) into a model organism for systems neuroscience. These microscopic, transparent animals (~300-500 microns) are among the smallest known to possess both limbs (eight)…
Expansion of the neocortex is a hallmark of human evolution. However, it remains an open question what adaptive mechanisms facilitated its expansion. Here we show, using gyrencephaly index (GI) and other physiological and life-history data…
Our goal in this work is to expand the theory and practice of robot locomotion by addressing critical challenges associated with the robotic biomimicry of bat aerial locomotion. Bats are known for their pronounced, fast wing articulations,…
In flapping flight, motion of the wings through the air generates the majority of the force and torque that controls the body motion. On the other hand, it is not clear how much effect the body motion imposes on the wings. We investigated…
In many insect species, the thoracic structure plays a crucial role in enabling flight. In the dipteran indirect flight mechanism, the thorax acts as a transmission link between the flight muscles and the wings, and it is often thought to…
Evolutionary Robotics and Robot Learning are two fields in robotics that aim to automatically optimize robot designs. The key difference between them lies in what is being optimized and the time scale involved. Evolutionary Robotics is a…
The origins of spontaneous movements have been investigated in human as well as in other vertebrates. Studies have reported an increase in neuronal activity one second before the onset of a given movement: this is known as readiness…
Turbulence is omnipresent in the atmosphere and a long-standing scientific conundrum that makes flight complex. This complexity is little understood; surprisingly, when turbulence arises, air vehicles struggle while birds seem to thrive.…
Avian-informed drones feature morphing wing and tail surfaces, enhancing agility and adaptability in flight. Despite their large potential, realising their full capabilities remains challenging due to the lack of generalized control…
While dragonflies are highly agile flyers, some key aerodynamic mechanisms responsible for their flight performance remain inadequately understood. Based on forward flight conditions, we investigate dragonfliess spanwise aerodynamic…
The human brain is composed of distinct regions that are each associated with particular functions and distinct propensities for the control of neural dynamics. However, the relation between these functions and control profiles is poorly…
This expository review is devoted to fish swimming and bird/insect flight. (i) The simple waving motion of an elongated flexible ribbon plate of constant width, immersed in a fluid at rest, propagating a wave distally down the plate to swim…
Recent work suggests goal-driven training of neural networks can be used to model neural activity in the brain. While response properties of neurons in artificial neural networks bear similarities to those in the brain, the network…
An important characteristic of flocks of birds, school of fish, and many similar assemblies of self-propelled particles is the emergence of states of collective order in which the particles move in the same direction. When noise is added…
The human brains are organized into hierarchically modular networks facilitating efficient and stable information processing and supporting diverse cognitive processes during the course of development. While the remarkable reconfiguration…
Studying shape changing thick surfaces induced by differential growth helps us understand morphogenesis in biology and offers opportunities for device design. While ideal 2D differential growth maps have been well studied for both isotropic…
The adaptive learning capabilities seen in biological neural networks are largely a product of the self-modifying behavior emerging from online plastic changes in synaptic connectivity. Current methods in Reinforcement Learning (RL) only…
Flight is a complicated task at small scales in part due to the ubiquitous unsteady air which contains it. Flying organisms deal with these difficulties using active and passive control mechanisms to steer their body motion. Body attitudes…
Morphogens are secreted signaling molecules that mediate tissue patterning and growth of embryonic tissues. They are secreted in a localized region and spread through the tissue to form a graded concentration profile. We present a…