An Analysis of a Ring Attractor Model for Cue Integration

Sun, Xuelong; Mangan, Michael; Yue, Shigang

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-95972-6_49

Cited by 26 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Ants bypass the nests of conspecfics that diffuse similar odours ( CO 2 ) until reaching the nest locale ( Buehlmann et al, 2012 ) indicating use of a sophisticated integration strategy beyond simple switching outlined above. Rather, ants instead appear to weight their PI output relative to the home-vector length in a similar fashion to their integration of path integration and visual cues ( Wystrach et al, 2015 ; Legge et al, 2014 ) as was realised in our previous model using ring attractor networks ( Touretzky, 2005 ; Sun et al, 2018, 2020 ). Figure 2 A (right panel) depicts the augmentation of our odour-gated anemotaxis model with a ring attractor circuit to optimally integrate PI and olfactory navigation outputs.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…path integration unfamiliar contexts switching to visual route-following familiar contexts. As a final stage, we revealed how ring attractor circuits ( Touretzky, 2005 ; Sun et al, 2018 ) assumed to exist in the fan-shaped body provide an ideal substrate for optimally integrating cues that exist within a shared context (e.g. path integration and visual homing in unfamiliar contexts).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How the insect central complex could coordinate multimodal navigation

Sun

Yue²,

Mangan³

2021

Preprint

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The central complex of the insect midbrain is thought to coordinate insect guidance strategies. Computational models can account for specific behaviours but their applicability across sensory and task domains remains untested. Here we assess the capacity of our previous model explaining visual navigation to generalise to olfactory navigation and its coordination with other guidance in flies and ants. We show that fundamental to this capacity is the use of a biologically-realistic neural copy-and-shift mechanism that ensures sensory information is presented in a format compatible with the insect steering circuit regardless of its source. Moreover, the same mechanism is shown to transfer cues from unstable/egocentric to stable/geocentric frames of reference providing a first account of the mechanism by which foraging insects robustly recover from environmental disturbances. We propose that these circuits can be flexibly repurposed by different insect navigators to address their unique ecological needs.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the insect central complex could coordinate multimodal navigation

Sun

Yue²,

Mangan³

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…In addition to its spatio-temporal properties, the convergence of several sensory pathways onto a single compass-driven scheme offers an interesting substrate to look further into optimization of the navigation behaviours. Optimal integration in biological systems has been considered to conform to Bayesian-like principles [23; 24; 87–89], as a principled way to take noise and uncertainty into account. Social insects and central-place foragers have evolved under high pressure to be able to return reliably to their nests, and hence make use of multiple redundant mechanisms, and a wide range of sensory cues including visual cues (polarised light, landmarks, sun, light gradients), magnetic fields, optic flow, odours, wind direction, tactile cues and/or proprioception [90–93].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, Sun et al [20] proposed a way to combine several navigation systems using a common architecture similar to the ring attractor formed by E-PG neurons. The simple summation of these orientation signals could be done directly and offered Bayesian optimal combination characteristics [21] that could support the robustness of insect behaviour [22]. However, a third issue arises from the fact that not all navigation systems will necessarily provide information in the form of a desired orientation.…”

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confidence: 99%

A unified mechanism for innate and learned visual landmark guidance in the insect central complex

Goulard

Buehlmann

Graham

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Insects can navigate efficiently in both novel and familiar environments, and this requires flexiblity in how they are guided by sensory cues. A prominent landmark, for example, can ellicit strong innate behaviours (attraction or menotaxis) but can also be used through learning as a specific directional cue to sustain navigation memory. However, the mechanisms that allow both pathways to co-exist, interact or override each other are largely unknown. Here we propose a model for behavioural integration based on the neuroanatomy of the central complex (CX) and adapted to control landmark guided behaviours. We consider a reward signal provided either by an innate attraction to landmarks or a long-term visual memory that modulates the formation of a local vector memory in the CX. Using an operant strategy for a simulated agent exploring a simple arena world with a single cue, we show how the short-term memory generated can support both innate and learned steering behaviour. In addition, we show how this architecture is consistent with observed effects of unilateral mushroom bodies (MB) lesions in ants that cause a reversion to innate behaviour. We suggest the formation of a directional memory in the CX can be interpreted as transforming rewarding (positive or negative) sensory signals into a geometrical attractiveness (or repulsion) mapping of the environment. We discuss how this scheme might represent an ideal way to combine multisensory information gathered during the exploration of an environment and support optimized cue integration.

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“…The insects Central Complex (CX), a central neuropil well conserved across arthropods species, had long been known for being implicated in navigation, but it is only recently that details on the compass implementation have been revealed [64]. Seelig and Jayaraman [65] showed with neuroimagery that a bump of neural activity shifting around a toroidal structure (the Ellipsoid Body of the CX) could encode and track the individual's current direction, not without recalling older theoretical models of 'ring-attractor' networks [66]- [69]. We now understand how a stable heading emerges in this brain structure from multi-modal neural signals [70, p. 201], [71]- [75].…”

Section: How To Build a Good Internal Compass?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a multi-level understanding in insect navigation

Moël

Wystrach

2020

Current Opinion in Insect Science

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 The field of insect navigation is a good example of the implementation of Marr's three levels of explanation.  It illustrates how important it is to consider an intermediary 'computational' level between neurons and behaviour.  Ethological background and computational modelling both have been key to characterize this intermediary level.  Recent descriptions of neural circuits can be well mapped to such identified computation level, rather than directly to behaviour.  This led to multi-level understandings of complex insect navigational behaviours, of which we provide examples here.

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An Analysis of a Ring Attractor Model for Cue Integration

Cited by 26 publications

References 27 publications

How the insect central complex could coordinate multimodal navigation

How the insect central complex could coordinate multimodal navigation

A unified mechanism for innate and learned visual landmark guidance in the insect central complex

Towards a multi-level understanding in insect navigation

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