Sensory-motor strategies for odor-guided navigation

项目摘要 动物通过动态的、反复的感觉-运动过程与世界互动，这些过程指导它们的 正在进行的运动。气味导航是基本自然行为的基础， 寻找食物来源，但很少有人知道的感觉信号的性质，通知适应 运动的变化。在这里，我们建议测试空间信息是如何编码的分布式活动 以及这些信息是如何被高级大脑区域解码的。嗅觉取样 通过“嗅闻”--被认为是提供当前气味快照的离散感官样本--发生 环境一种可能性是动物通过比较浓度梯度 通过连续的嗅探。另一个是，方向信息可能存在于左右“立体声”中。 半球之间的比较。为了解决这个问题，我们使用新的成像工具来可视化大- 参与气味引导搜索的小鼠嗅球两半球的尺度活动动力学。 我们还描述了解码此空间的下游电路中的函数计算 信息，使用全细胞记录和光遗传学刺激来建立双边 突触整合，以及高分辨率的体内光刺激映射，以测量交叉， 大脑半球的相互作用最后，我们使用光遗传学活性操作， 气味引导的搜索，以测试交叉嗅探与左右“立体声”比较在快速驾驶中的因果作用 运动调节总之，这些数据将有助于建立感觉运动算法， 构成了一个关键的动物行为学行为的基础，并为更广泛地探索动物如何 利用感官线索来驾驭复杂的自然环境。

Project Summary Animals interact with the world through dynamic, iterative sensory-motor processes that guide their ongoing movement. Odor-guided navigation is the basis for fundamental natural behaviors such as finding food sources, but little is known about the nature of the sensory signals that inform adaptive changes in locomotion. Here we propose to test how spatial information is encoded by distributed activity in the olfactory bulb, and how this information is decoded by higher-order brain areas. Olfactory sampling occurs through ‘sniffs’ – discrete sensory samples thought to provide a snapshot of the current odor environment. One possibility is that animals ascend concentration gradients by comparing intensity across successive sniffs. Another is that directional information may be present in left-right ‘stereo’ comparisons between hemispheres. To address this issue, we use new imaging tools to visualize large- scale activity dynamics over both hemispheres of olfactory bulb in mice engaged in odor-guided search. We also characterize functional computations in the downstream circuits that decode this spatial information, using whole cell recordings and optogenetic stimulation to establish rules for bilateral synaptic integration, as well as high-resolution in vivo photostimulation mapping to measure cross- hemisphere interactions in the intact circuit. Finally, we use optogenetic activity manipulations during odor-guided search to test the causal role of cross-sniff vs. left-right ‘stereo’ comparisons in driving rapid locomotor adjustments. Together, these data will help establish the sensory-motor algorithms that underlie a key ethological behavior, and provide a foundation for a wider exploration of how animals exploit sensory cues to navigate complex natural environments.