Dynamics of active sensing movements and sensory processing

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Animals sometimes perceive the world through senses that appear foreign to us. This is particularly true of electric fish, a type of small fish living in South America and West Africa that can produce and detect electric fields. Through electroreceptors distributed on their skin, they measure perturbations of their self-generated electric field. Using such electrosensory information, they can detect objects, navigate and communicate. This proposal focuses on various aspects of this electric sense, from the scale of single neurons to that of behaviour. My aims are to 1) build a computational model able to capture the particular form of voltage noise observed in pyramidal neurons of the primary electrosensory processing area, and 2) to analyze and model rhythmic electromotor behaviours of freely behaving fish. These problems involve notions of nonlinear and stochastic dynamical systems, and require the application of computational tools, such as computer-simulated neuronal models. all topics that lie within my area of expertise. While this work is of theoretical nature, it will make use of available experimental data in order to ensure that the proposed models are empirically grounded. The synergy between theoretical and experimental approaches has been long recognized as a valuable approach in neuroscience and biology, and this proposal fits right into this framework. Overall, this work will contribute to improve our general understanding of sensory information processing, neuronal excitability, active sensing, and attention. In addition to fundamental advances in terms of knowledge, the results emerging from this work could also lead to novel biomedical engineering technologies (such as cochlear implants) and to improved diagnostic or treatment tools for conditions such as attention deficit disorder.