Opponent processes in visual memories: a model of attraction and repulsion in navigating insects’ mushroom bodies
Authors: Möel Florent Le , Wystrach Antoine 
Published: December 2019

Solitary foraging insects display stunning navigational behaviours in visually complex natural environments. Current literature assumes that these insects are mostly driven by attractive visual memories, which are learnt when the insect’s gaze is precisely oriented toward the goal direction, typically along its familiar route or towards its nest. That way, an insect could return home by simply moving in the direction that appears most familiar. Here we show using virtual reconstructions of natural environments that this principle suffers from fundamental drawbacks, notably, a given view of the world does not provide information about whether the agent should turn or not to reach its goal. We propose a simple model where the agent continuously compares its current view with both goal and anti-goal visual memories, which are treated as attractive and repulsive respectively. We show that this strategy effectively results in an opponent process, albeit not at the perceptual level – such as those proposed for colour vision or polarisation detection – but at the level of environmental space. This opponent process results in a signal that strongly correlates with the angular error of the current body orientation so that a single view of the world now suffices to indicate whether the agent should turn or not. By incorporating this principle into a simple agent navigating in reconstructed natural environments, we show that it overcomes the usual shortcomings and produces a step-increase in navigation effectiveness and robustness. Our findings provide a functional explanation to recent behavioural observations in ants and why and how so-called aversive and appetitive memories must be combined. We propose a likely neural implementation based on the insect mushroom bodies’ circuitry that produces behavioural and neural predictions contrasting with previous models.

Author summary

Insects such as ants and bees are excellent navigators, able to learn long foraging routes and return to their nest in complex natural habitats. To achieve this, it is believed that individuals memorise views – the visual scene as they perceive it – only when their body is precisely oriented towards the goal. As a result, the insect can return to its goal by simply being attracted in the direction that represents the highest visual familiarity. Here we use a computational approach to show that this strategy suffers from a major weakness: a single view of the world does not suffice to tell whether the agent should turn or not to reach its goal. However, a surprisingly robust solution to this problem arises if we simply assume that these insects memorise not only goal-oriented views but also anti-goal-oriented views that they then treat as repulsive. This idea clarifies several observed behaviours that were difficult to explain with previous models. Overall, this research helps us to understand how insects combine memories in specific brain areas and can navigate so efficiently despite their tiny brain.