NeuroNex: From odor to Action: Discovering Principles of Olfactory-Guided Natural Behavior - NSF Proposal Number: 2014217

这个合作项目的总体目标是理解大脑研究中的一个基本问题-大脑如何利用自然刺激来产生自然行为。我们利用老鼠和昆虫的嗅觉以及由气味引导的行为来解决这个问题。然而，我们认为这是许多复杂大脑系统的一个更普遍问题的例子-复杂的刺激是如何在大脑回路中表示并映射到动作的？大脑处理气味的电路的紧凑结构提供了独特的机会来实现对从刺激到行为的理解，以及对大脑组织和读出这些复杂变量以产生适应性行为的核心计算逻辑的理解。我们将研究哺乳动物和昆虫的嗅觉系统，它们独立地进化出解决这些问题的大脑回路。这些共同的元素可能反映了朝着一套类似的解决共同嗅觉问题的解决方案的趋同进化。我们多元化的国际小组由三个跨学科的研究小组组成，他们围绕端到端的嗅觉调查的特定元素而设计。他们包括对自然刺激编码的研究(小组1)，它们引起的自然行为(小组2)，以及动物在自然环境中遇到刺激时使用的主动搜索策略(小组3)。每个团队将两个或更多物种的理论和实验方法整合在一起，在生物分析的各个层面产生互补的、协同的相互作用。

The overall goal of this collaborative project is to understand a fundamental problem in brain research---how natural stimuli are used by brains to generate natural behaviors. We approach thisproblem using the sense of smell of mice and insects and behaviours that are guided by smell. We see this, however, as an example of a more general problem of manycomplex brain systems---how are complex stimuli represented in brain circuits and mapped to actions? Thecompact architecture of the brain circuits processing smells offers unique opportunities to achieve an understandingfrom the stimulus to the behaviour and of the core computational logic by which brains organize and read out such complex variables to generate adaptive behaviors. We will study olfactory systems of mammals and insects, whichhave independently evolved brain circuits that solve these problems. These common elements may reflect convergent evolution towards a set ofsimilar solutions to shared olfactory problems. Our diverse and international group is comprised of three interdisciplinaryresearch groups that are designed around specific elements of an end-to-end investigation of olfaction.They encompass studies of encoding natural stimuli (Team 1), the natural behaviors that they give rise to(Team 2), and active search strategies animals use as they encounter stimuli in naturalenvironments (Team 3). Each Team integrates theory and experimental approaches in two or more species inways that produce complementary, synergistic interactions across levels of biological analysis.