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Foraging fruit flies mix navigational and learning-based decision-making strategies

Sophie E. Seidenbecher, Joshua I. Sanders, View ORCID ProfileAnne C. von Philipsborn, View ORCID ProfileDuda Kvitsiani
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/842096
Sophie E. Seidenbecher
Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience - DANDRITE, Nordic-EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.Aarhus University, Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics, Denmark
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Joshua I. Sanders
Sanworks LLC, Stony Brook, NY 11790, United States
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Anne C. von Philipsborn
Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience - DANDRITE, Nordic-EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.Aarhus University, Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics, Denmark
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Duda Kvitsiani
Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience - DANDRITE, Nordic-EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.Aarhus University, Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics, Denmark
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  • For correspondence: kvitsi@dandrite.au.dk
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Abstract

Animals often navigate environments that are uncertain, volatile and complex, making it challenging to locate reliable food sources. Therefore, it is not surprising that many species evolved multiple, parallel and complementary foraging strategies to survive. Current research on animal behavior is largely driven by a reductionist approach and attempts to study one particular aspect of behavior in isolation. This is justified by the huge success of past and current research in understanding neural circuit mechanisms of behaviors. But focusing on only one aspect of behaviors obscures their inherent multidimensional nature. To fill this gap we aimed to identify and characterize distinct behavioral modules using a simple reward foraging assay. For this we developed a single-animal, trial-based probabilistic foraging task, where freely walking fruit flies experience optogenetic sugar-receptor neuron stimulation. By carefully analyzing the walking trajectories of flies, we were able to dissect the animals foraging decisions into multiple underlying systems. We show that flies perform local searches, cue-based navigation and learn task relevant contingencies. Using probabilistic reward delivery allowed us to bid several competing reinforcement learning (RL) models against each other. We discover that flies accumulate chosen option values, forget unchosen option values and seek novelty. We further show that distinct behavioral modules -learning and navigation-based systems-cooperate, suggesting that reinforcement learning in flies operates on dimensionality reduced representations. We therefore argue that animals will apply combinations of multiple behavioral strategies to generate foraging decisions.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 15, 2019.
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Foraging fruit flies mix navigational and learning-based decision-making strategies
Sophie E. Seidenbecher, Joshua I. Sanders, Anne C. von Philipsborn, Duda Kvitsiani
bioRxiv 842096; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/842096
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Foraging fruit flies mix navigational and learning-based decision-making strategies
Sophie E. Seidenbecher, Joshua I. Sanders, Anne C. von Philipsborn, Duda Kvitsiani
bioRxiv 842096; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/842096

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