“Neural Mechanisms of Natural Spatial Behaviors in Bats”
Michael Yartsev, PhD
Associate Professor
HHMI Investigator
Dept. of Bioengineering and the
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
UC Berkeley
Host: Massimo Scanziani, PhD
Abstract: Our lab integrates a neuroethological with a neurotechnological approach to study the brain
through the lens of natural behavior in a unique mammalian system - the Egyptian fruit bat
(Rousettus aegyptiacus), leveraging its exquisite capacity to navigate 3D space with high
precision during high-speed flight. We do so because we believe that the understanding of
neural computations is profoundly enriched when studied in the context of the complex, natural
actions that brains have evolved to support. This necessitates careful consideration of the
species’ ethology and the context in which they evolved to function, while simultaneously
establishing the behavioral and neurophysiological technologies required to investigate neural
circuits in freely flying bats. In this talk, I will first contrast this approach with the traditional
one, demonstrating how standard constraints of “controlled” experiments can introduce
unintended biases into "spatial" neural codes. I will then switch entirely to the more
spontaneous/natural regime, where I will present recent findings obtained using large-scale
ensemble recordings (via Neuropixels) in freely foraging bats. The first part will focus on a
surprising coordination between the motor and spatial domains that emerges naturally during
flight, while the second will address single cell and ensemble dynamics in the entorhinal cortex
and their simple solution to the problem of navigation in 3D space. Both stories will
demonstrate that solutions to challenging mechanistic problems can often be elegant in their
simplicity when we look at not only where the animal is, but also at how it naturally moves
through the world it evolved to navigate.