0000000000170428
AUTHOR
Bianca Zäpf
Higher Brain Centers for Intelligent Motor Control in Insects
The higher control of orientation, walking and gap climbing behavior in the fruit fly Drosophila is studied by neurogenetic means. An insect brain model is presented for the control of object approaches. The model comprises learning abilities of flies at two different time scales. A short-term orientation memory allows for the continued approach of objects that disappeared from sight. Flies can come back to the still invisible object even after a detour to a distracter object. A long-term memory allows for the storage of experience with particular types of objects in order to trigger avoidance behavior in the future instead of the default approach behavior. Moreover, we provide evidence tha…
Modeling the insect mushroom bodies: application to a delayed match-to-sample task.
Despite their small brains, insects show advanced capabilities in learning and task solving. Flies, honeybees and ants are becoming a reference point in neuroscience and a main source of inspiration for autonomous robot design issues and control algorithms. In particular, honeybees demonstrate to be able to autonomously abstract complex associations and apply them in tasks involving different sensory modalities within the insect brain. Mushroom Bodies (MBs) are worthy of primary attention for understanding memory and learning functions in insects. In fact, even if their main role regards olfactory conditioning, they are involved in many behavioral achievements and learning capabilities, as …