Opponent processes in visual memories: A model of attraction and repulsion in navigating insects' mushroom bodies
Opponent processes in visual memories: A model of attraction and repulsion in navigating insects' mushroom bodies
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007631
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发表时间：
2020-02-01
影响因子：
4.3
通讯作者：
Wystrach, Antoine
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Le Moel, Florent;Wystrach, Antoine
独居觅食昆虫在视觉复杂的自然环境中表现出令人惊叹的导航行为。目前的文献认为，这些昆虫主要是由有吸引力的视觉记忆驱动的，当昆虫的目光精确地朝向目标方向（通常沿着其熟悉的路线或朝向其巢穴）时，就会学到这些记忆。这样，昆虫只需朝最熟悉的方向移动就可以回家。在这里，我们使用自然环境的虚拟重建表明，该原理存在根本缺陷，特别是，给定的世界观并不能提供有关智能体是否应该转向以达到其目标的信息。我们提出了一个简单的模型，其中代理不断地将其当前视图与目标和反目标视觉记忆进行比较，这分别被视为有吸引力和令人厌恶。我们表明，这种策略有效地导致了对抗过程，尽管不是在感知层面（例如针对色觉或偏振检测提出的那些），而是在环境空间层面。这个对手过程会产生一个与当前身体方向的角度误差密切相关的信号，因此单一的世界视图现在足以指示智能体是否应该转弯。通过将这一原理融入到在重建的自然环境中导航的简单代理中，我们证明它克服了通常的缺点，并在导航有效性和鲁棒性方面产生了逐步提高。我们的研究结果为最近对蚂蚁的行为观察提供了功能性解释，以及为什么以及如何将所谓的厌恶记忆和食欲记忆结合起来。我们提出了一种基于昆虫蘑菇体电路的可能的神经实现，该电路产生与以前的模型相反的行为和神经预测。
Solitary foraging insects display stunning navigational behaviours in visually complex natural environments. Current literature assumes that these insects are mostly driven by attractive visual memories, which are learnt when the insect's gaze is precisely oriented toward the goal direction, typically along its familiar route or towards its nest. That way, an insect could return home by simply moving in the direction that appears most familiar. Here we show using virtual reconstructions of natural environments that this principle suffers from fundamental drawbacks, notably, a given view of the world does not provide information about whether the agent should turn or not to reach its goal. We propose a simple model where the agent continuously compares its current view with both goal and anti-goal visual memories, which are treated as attractive and repulsive respectively. We show that this strategy effectively results in an opponent process, albeit not at the perceptual level-such as those proposed for colour vision or polarisation detection-but at the level of the environmental space. This opponent process results in a signal that strongly correlates with the angular error of the current body orientation so that a single view of the world now suffices to indicate whether the agent should turn or not. By incorporating this principle into a simple agent navigating in reconstructed natural environments, we show that it overcomes the usual shortcomings and produces a step-increase in navigation effectiveness and robustness. Our findings provide a functional explanation to recent behavioural observations in ants and why and how so-called aversive and appetitive memories must be combined. We propose a likely neural implementation based on insects' mushroom bodies' circuitry that produces behavioural and neural predictions contrasting with previous models.