Adaptive Control Responses to Behavioral Perturbation Based Upon the Insect

摘要

The Munitions Directorate at Eglin AFB FL supported research at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland OH describing transitional behaviors in insect walking and in flight. Quantitative descriptions of the complex decisions that a cockroach makes in deciding to climb over or tunnel under a barrier allowed the examinations of discrete brain lesions in order to pin point where and how these decisions are made. Documentation of turning movements developed hypotheses regarding how descending cues might alter local reflexes to turn the animal while retaining stability. Lesions in the brain and subsequent recordings demonstrated how the descending commands might be formulated within the brain. A robotic leg was developed (hardware model of the system)and could play a critical role in testing our hypotheses at a systems level. The obtained results also positioned CWRU to move ahead with new funding initiatives. The brain recording and stimulation projects that were initiated during this research effort are now funded by an NSF grant to the Ritzmann laboratory at CWRU. In addition, the projects that were undertaken to understand the alterations that occur at the local control level in response to descending commands is being pursued as a proposal to AFOSR.