FlyLearn · Understanding how self-movement representations shape motor learning
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-06-01 → 2022-05-31
- EU contribution
- €147,815
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Understanding how self-movement representations shape motor learning
Learning how movements displace an animal in space is vital for survival. The relationship between locomotor commands in the brain and their consequences are subject to frequent changes both in bodily properties such as during injury or muscle fatigue, and environmental properties like terrain firmness. As animals move through space, they create optic flow (OF) fields and have sophisticated neural systems to detect them. It is thought that to estimate the casual relationship between movements and their consequences all animals, including humans, have internal movement representations and compare them to outcome. How these movement representations are updated to sensory stimuli, such as optic flow, is not understood for any animal species. Understanding how animals adapt their movements to sensory feedback is essential for any complete theory of how behavior is generated. The fly’s visual system has neurons (HS cells) that respond both to optic flow and to the movements that a fly does when walking. Also, serotonergic neurons located in the posterior medial protocerebral (PMPV) cluster were shown to reduce walking in flies. The aim of this project is to test the hypothesis that the visual-motor signals generated by HS cells are used to calibrate movements to visual flow and that this calibration is performed by the action of serotonergic neurons in the PMPV cluster. Linking HS neural activity to motor learning would provide an explanation why these self-movement representations exist in the brain and inspire new motor learning theories, that could be of great use in robotics. Also, serotonin is the most important pharmacological target for anxiety and depression. Therefore, any understanding on its function may help to design more effective therapies for these diseases. Furthermore, implicating serotonin in motor learning may uncover new uses for serotonin-based drugs in people with learning disabilities. Finally, this project involves creating a computational framework to track the movements that an animal does, that could be adapted to other animal species and to tackle other scientific questions.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
To execute accurate movements animals must continuously calibrate their behavior to changes in their bodies and the environment. This process, called sensorimotor adaption, is thought to take place by comparing sensory feedback with internal movement representations. How the brain compares sensory information to movements and updates behavior is not well understood for any animal species. We propose to tackle this problem by using the fruit fly, because, flies have a set of neurons (HS cells) that integrate movement with visual information, being ideal candidates to convey information of self-movement during learning. Also, in a wide array of species spanning from the C. elegans to mice, including the fruit fly, when animals transition to low locomotion states serotonergic neurons are active, being possible substrates to calibrate movements to visual feedback. Here, we propose a set of experiments to inhibit and activate HS cells and serotonergic neurons and casually link their activity to sensorimotor adaption. Also, we will record the neural activity from these neurons to understand how the neural signals in HS cells and serotonergic neurons change during motor learning. This project will provide a detailed mechanistic description on how representations of self-movement in the brain are modulated by serotonin and used for motor learning. This knowledge will be useful to inspire new motor learning theories and understand how the brain generates behavior.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- FUNDACAO D. ANNA DE SOMMER CHAMPALIMAUD E DR. CARLOS MONTEZ CHAMPALIMAUD · LISBOACoordinatorPortugal
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union