title: Neurally Encoding Time for Olfactory Navigation.
abstract: Accurately encoding time is one of the fundamental challenges faced by the nervous system in mediating behavior. We recently reported that some animals have a specialized population of rhythmically active neurons in their olfactory organs with the potential to peripherally encode temporal information about odor encounters. If these neurons do indeed encode the timing of odor arrivals, it should be possible to demonstrate that this capacity has some functional significance. Here we show how this sensory input can profoundly influence an animal's ability to locate the source of odor cues in realistic turbulent environments-a common task faced by species that rely on olfactory cues for navigation. Using detailed data from a turbulent plume created in the laboratory, we reconstruct the spatiotemporal behavior of a real odor field. We use recurrence theory to show that information about position relative to the source of the odor plume is embedded in the timing between odor pulses. Then, using a parameterized computational model, we show how an animal can use populations of rhythmically active neurons to capture and encode this temporal information in real time, and use it to efficiently navigate to an odor source. Our results demonstrate that the capacity to accurately encode temporal information about sensory cues may be crucial for efficient olfactory navigation. More generally, our results suggest a mechanism for extracting and encoding temporal information from the sensory environment that could have broad utility for neural information processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: In Jun
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Hein
authors.affiliation: Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, St. Augustine, Florida, United States of America.|Center for Smell and Taste, and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Yuriy V
authors.initials: YV
authors.lastname: Bobkov
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Matthew A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Reidenbach
authors.affiliation: Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, St. Augustine, Florida, United States of America.|Center for Smell and Taste, and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.|Departments of Biology and Neuroscience, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Barry W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Ache
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jose C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Principe
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D019295:Computational Biology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009812:Odorants / Q000032:analysis*; D018034:Olfactory Receptor Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*