The goal of this project is to understand at the cellular and neural circuit-level how the brain computes actions directed to memorised locations in space. We aim to produce a mechanistic model of how neurons integrate information from sensory and memory systems to determine the position of the body in relation to a memorised target location, and how neural circuits generate actions that move towards the target. This is important because animals, including humans, must constantly navigate through space and move body parts, such as limbs, to locations that are valuable (to obtain food, for example), and often the target location is not immediately reachable by sensory systems (e.g.: it is not visible from the current position); therefore, the movement must be made towards a previously memorised location. This process is essential for satisfying basic survival needs, and obtaining a mechanistic neural model of how actions are generated to reach memorised spatial goals will explain how the brain implements a series of computations essential to every-day life.
To achieve this goal, we study mice and investigate their instinctive escape behaviour to shelter upon imminent threat. In this paradigm, animals are presented with innately aversive sensory stimuli, such visual images that mimic a rapidly approaching predator. When mice see these stimuli, they immediately escape to a shelter, and importantly, they do so not by looking around to see where the shelter is, but by using memory and remembering the shelter location. We believe that mice continuously compute a vector to the shelter (i.e.: the escape route), which represents the goal of the actions that should be taken to reach the memorised location in space where the shelter is. We will use the shelter vector as a model for goal-directed memory-based actions and ask how the brain computes the vector and turns it into motor actions. Answering these questions will not only advance our understanding of how escape actions are computed to reach a memorised shelter location but may also reveal general principles of how spatial goal-directed actions are computed in the brain.
