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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Feb 24

My TEDx talk just came out!

“How flies can help us build better robots and AI”
youtube.com/watch?v=kFV6...

Thanks again to the fantastic organizers at TEDxArendal

Special thanks to the people in my laboratory at EPFL past and present without whom none of this would be possible

youtube.com

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

3-2/ EVEN without antennae, the coordination between head rotations and foreleg movements remains! 😱😱😱

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

3-1/ Or, head-immobilized flies will still move their antennae and forelegs in a fascinatingly coordinated fashion. 🤯

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

3/ Surprisingly, each body part operates independently of the others' sensory feedback. Even with amputated forelegs, flies still move their antennae and head! This suggests an open-loop (not feedback-based) coordination mechanism. 🤖

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

10/ Big thanks to our amazing collaborators and the incredible fly community for creating the open-source tools that made this work possible. 🙌 #Neuroscience #MotorControl #Drosophila #Connectome @neuroxepfl.bsky.social @fly-eds.bsky.social @flywire.bsky.social

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

9/ So next time you see a fly grooming itself or you try multitasking, take a moment to appreciate the magic of coordination. Check out our preprint! 🪰🧠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Centralized brain networks underlie body part coordination during grooming

Animals must coordinate multiple body parts to perform important tasks such as grooming, or locomotion. How this movement synchronization is achieved by the nervous system remains largely unknown. Her...

www.biorxiv.org

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

8/ The fly’s strategy enables robustness yet flexibility, thus it may be a common blueprint for movement across species—or even for other behaviors in flies. 🐁🐱🦎

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

7/ Recurrent excitation: Drives non-groomed antennal pitch movements and keeps other motor networks in sync. ⚡️
Broadcast inhibition: Suppresses targeted antennal movement to prevent conflicting actions. ⛔️

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

6/ To understand this better, we simulated the grooming network and ran a computational neural activation screen. Two key circuit motifs emerged as the stars of this coordination process:

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

5/ Think of it as an elegant engineering solution: these central neurons enable flexibility, allowing any brain region to initiate or stop the behavior. 🛠️

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Dec 18

Here, once again, we were granted unprecedented access to neural architectures by having the full fly brain connectome at our fingertips...

Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

4/ So, what orchestrates these movements? Using the fly connectome, we constructed a subnetwork for antennal grooming. In this network, we discovered that a central group of neurons links motor circuits for the neck, antennae, and forelegs. 🧠 These neurons act as a hub for coordinating body parts.

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Dec 18

ghost grooming! (perhaps more appropriate for halloween 👻)

Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

3-2/ EVEN without antennae, the coordination between head rotations and foreleg movements remains! 😱😱😱

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Dec 18

This is really a beautiful demonstration of one of the important opportunities provided by realistic biomechanical models - inference of contact forces and selective manipulation of individual joint degrees of freedom!

Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

2/ By simulating these motions in a biomechanical model, we discovered the reason: synchronization ensures forceful and unobstructed interactions between the forelegs and antennae. This efficiency guarantees a thorough cleaning job. 💪✨

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

2/ By simulating these motions in a biomechanical model, we discovered the reason: synchronization ensures forceful and unobstructed interactions between the forelegs and antennae. This efficiency guarantees a thorough cleaning job. 💪✨

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Reposted by ramdya.bsky.social

Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

1/ In our study, we explored how flies synchronize their head, antennae, and forelegs during goal-directed antennal grooming. We found that when targeting an antenna, flies perform three distinct motor actions. But why these specific movements?

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Gizem Özdil @gzmozd.bsky.social · Dec 18

🧵 Ever seen a fly perform a full self-care ritual? 🪰 They meticulously rub their head and clean their antennae, ensuring every speck of dirt is gone. But how do they coordinate all those tiny body parts so seamlessly?👇

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Dec 18

As you unwrap your holiday presents, consider how you coordinate your fingers and limbs.
@gzmozd.bsky.social identified fly brain networks for body part coordination through experiments, biomechanical modeling, connectomics, and neural network simulations ! 🤖
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Nov 26

Being raised alone makes flies afraid of one another! 🪰
But exposure to other flies makes them become sociable. We found and recorded specific learning circuits in the brain that regulate this transition. Read more in our new preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Nov 12

Now published in Nature Methods:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're excited to present NeuroMechFly v2, a neuromechanical simulation of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, for exploring artificial neural networks (including connectome-driven models) controlling behavior.

www.neuromechfly.org

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Nov 14

The EPFL School of Life Sciences is hiring in the very broad area of Life Science Engineering.
www.epfl.ch/about/workin...
This a topically highly broad search. A rare opportunity.
Come be my colleague!

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Sep 19

We're excited to present

"NeuroMechFly 2.0, a framework for simulating embodied sensorimotor control in adult Drosophila"

biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

In which we make our digital fly see, smell, adhere, and navigate challenging terrain

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ramdya.bsky.social @ramdya.bsky.social · Sep 19

Cross posting a new paper from the lab
"Networks of descending neurons transform command-like signals into population-based behavioral control"
x.com/jonasfbraun/...

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