Navigational Algorithms and Neural Circuit Computations Directing Olfactory Search Across Species

Olfactory navigation is required for the survival of virtually all living creatures from unicellular organisms to mammals. This conference will focus on olfaction and spatial orientation as a unifying theme across organisms with different viewpoints: mechanistic, computational and evolutionary. We will examine how model organisms, with distinct sensory capabilities and constraints have evolved to solve this problem. From a comparative perspective, we will seek to extract fundamental principles related to the detection of (noisy) sensory stimuli and its conversion into goal-directed responses. We will also examine the modulatory effects of internal states and learning on sensorimotor control. We anticipate that control mechanisms directing orientation will be relevant to the study of sensory systems other than olfaction. Such mechanisms should also represent a source of inspiration to engineer new technologies.

The conference will tackle three challenges. The first pertains to neural mechanisms that underlie specific sensorimotor functions (filtering of noise, decision-making, etc.). Moving down from sensors to control circuits, we will discuss our understanding of the emergence of action selection from the activity of neural circuits. The second challenge will be more technical. Recently significant technological progresses have been made by mapping neural circuits in connectivity diagrams, by monitoring and perturbing neuronal activity in behaving animals. We will evaluate how these methods can be combined with mathematical modeling to test and to refine mechanistic hypothesis about elementary sensorimotor functions carried out by neural-circuit motifs. Finally, we will leverage a comparative analysis across model organisms to extract computational principles common to the biological implementations of adaptive navigational algorithms.

Applications are closed.