Topic: hawkmoth

Animals from flying insects to running humans thrive in uncertain and noisy environments. They smoothly navigate, swiftly track targets and escape predators because their sensorimotor systems are precisely fine-tuned for these tasks. Millisecond-precise spike timing codes, prevalent in both sensory and motor systems, can prompt large changes in muscle forces especially when several muscles coordinate to control a biomechanical action. Such coordinated spike timing changes, modulated by task-relevant sensory encoding over long timescales, can significantly contribute to the effectiveness of mot

Ali Weber (University of Washington, USA) uses the the hawkmoth as a model system, to investigate how information from a small number of mechanoreceptors on the wings are used in flight control. She employs a combination of experimental and computational techniques to study how these sensors respond during flight and how one might optimally array a set of these sensors to best provide feedback during flight.