Related papers: Olfactory learning alters navigation strategies an…
Animals employ different strategies for relating sensory input to behavioral output to navigate sensory environments, but what strategy to use, when to switch and why remain unclear. In C. elegans, navigation is composed of 'steering' and…
Organisms move through the world by changing their shape, and here we explore the mapping from shape space to movements in the nematode C. elegans as it crawls on a planar agar surface. We characterize the statistics of the trajectories…
Animal behaviors are sometimes decomposable into discrete, stereotyped elements. In one model, such behaviors are triggered by specific commands; in the extreme case, the discreteness of behavior is traced to the discreteness of action…
We investigate how locomotory behavior is generated in the brain focusing on the paradigmatic connectome of nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and on neuronal activity patterns that control forward locomotion. We map the neuronal…
Limbless locomotors, from microscopic worms to macroscopic snakes, traverse complex, heterogeneous natural environments typically using undulatory body wave propagation. Theoretical and robophysical models typically emphasize body…
We develop an artificial neural circuit for contour tracking and navigation inspired by the chemotaxis of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. In order to harness the computational advantages spiking neural networks promise over their…
A major challenge in analyzing animal behavior is to discover some underlying simplicity in complex motor actions. Here we show that the space of shapes adopted by the nematode C. elegans is surprisingly low dimensional, with just four…
Abrupt changes in behavior can often be associated with changes in underlying behavioral states. When placed off food, the foraging behavior of C. elegans can be described as a change between an initial local-search behavior characterized…
Animal locomotion is often subject to constraints arising from anatomical/physiological asymmetries. We use the nematode C.~elegans as a minimal model system to ask whether such constraints might shape locomotion patterns optimized during…
Olfactory search in turbulent environments is a sensorimotor challenge solved with remarkable efficiency by many animals, yet replicating this ability in artificial systems remains difficult because detections are intermittent and wind…
A quantitative understanding of how sensory signals are transformed into motor outputs places useful constraints on brain function and helps reveal the brain's underlying computations. We investigate how the nematode C. elegans responds to…
Rapid advances in genetics, genomics, and imaging have given insight into the molecular and cellular basis of behaviour in a variety of model organisms with unprecedented detail and scope. It is increasingly routine to isolate behavioural…
How do we capture the breadth of behavior in animal movement, from rapid body twitches to aging? Using high-resolution videos of the nematode worm $C. elegans$, we show that a single dynamics connects posture-scale fluctuations with…
A quantitative understanding of organism-level behavior requires predictive models that can capture the richness of behavioral phenotypes, yet are simple enough to connect with underlying mechanistic processes. Here we investigate the…
The 1mm roundworm C. elegans is a model organism used in many sub-areas of biology to investigate different types of biological processes. In order to complement the n-vivo analysis with computer-based investigations, several methods have…
Through natural evolution, nervous systems of organisms formed near-optimal structures to express behavior. Here, we propose an effective way to create control agents, by \textit{re-purposing} the function of biological neural circuit…
Olfactory navigation is observed across species and plays a crucial role in locating resources for survival. In the laboratory, understanding the behavioral strategies and neural circuits underlying odor-taxis requires a detailed…
C. elegans locomotion is composed of switches between forward and reversal states punctuated by turns. This locomotory capability is necessary for the nematode to move towards attractive stimuli, escape noxious chemicals, and explore its…
Neuromechanics aims to understand the link between an animal's neural activity and its physical behaviors. Recent advances in experimental and machine learning techniques enable simultaneous recordings of neural and locomotion dynamics over…
We consider the problem of olfactory searches in a turbulent environment. We focus on agents that respond solely to odor stimuli, with no access to spatial perception nor prior information about the odor. We ask whether navigation to a…