Variability in Locomotor Dynamics Reveals the Critical Role of Feedback in Task Control

Overview

Journal Elife

Specialty Biology

Date 2020 Jan 24

PMID 31971509

Citations 6

Authors

Ismail Uyanik

Shahin Sefati

Sarah A Stamper

Kyoung-A Cho

M Mert Ankarali

Eric S Fortune

Noah J Cowan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Animals vary considerably in size, shape, and physiological features across individuals, but yet achieve remarkably similar behavioral performances. We examined how animals compensate for morphophysiological variation by measuring the system dynamics of individual knifefish () in a refuge tracking task. Kinematic measurements of were used to generate individualized estimates of each fish's locomotor plant and controller, revealing substantial variability between fish. To test the impact of this variability on behavioral performance, these models were used to perform simulated 'brain transplants'-computationally swapping controllers and plants between individuals. We found that simulated closed-loop performance was robust to mismatch between plant and controller. This suggests that animals rely on feedback rather than precisely tuned neural controllers to compensate for morphophysiological variability.

Citing Articles

Moving in an Uncertain World: Robust and Adaptive Control of Locomotion from Organisms to Machine Intelligence.

Mongeau J, Yang Y, Escalante I, Cowan N, Jayaram K Integr Comp Biol. 2024; 64(5):1390-1407.

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Sensory fusion in the hoverfly righting reflex.

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Flies trade off stability and performance via adaptive compensation to wing damage.

Salem W, Cellini B, Kabutz H, Hari Prasad H, Cheng B, Jayaram K Sci Adv. 2022; 8(46):eabo0719.

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Nested mechanosensory feedback actively damps visually guided head movements in .

Cellini B, Mongeau J Elife. 2022; 11.

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