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Zhao J, Xue L, Mu Y, Ji P. From animal biology to simulated models and back: Comment on "control of movement of underwater swimmers: Animals, simulated animates and swimming robots" by Gordleeva et al. Phys Life Rev 2024; 49:17-18. [PMID: 38479308 DOI: 10.1016/j.plrev.2024.02.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2024] [Accepted: 02/27/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024]
Affiliation(s)
- Jiajia Zhao
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; Key Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Linuo Xue
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; Key Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200433, China
| | - Yu Mu
- Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China
| | - Peng Ji
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; Key Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200433, China; MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
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Gordleeva SY, Kastalskiy IA, Tsybina YA, Ermolaeva AV, Hramov AE, Kazantsev VB. Control of movement of underwater swimmers: Animals, simulated animates and swimming robots. Phys Life Rev 2023; 47:211-244. [PMID: 38072505 DOI: 10.1016/j.plrev.2023.10.037] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2023] [Accepted: 10/29/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023]
Abstract
The control of movement in living organisms represents a fundamental task that the brain has evolved to solve. One crucial aspect is how the nervous system organizes the transformation of sensory information into motor commands. These commands lead to muscle activation and subsequent animal movement, which can exhibit complex patterns. One example of such movement is locomotion, which involves the translation of the entire body through space. Central Pattern Generators (CPGs) are neuronal circuits that provide control signals for these movements. Compared to the intricate circuits found in the brain, CPGs can be simplified into networks of neurons that generate rhythmic activation, coordinating muscle movements. Since the 1990s, researchers have developed numerous models of locomotive circuits to simulate different types of animal movement, including walking, flying, and swimming. Initially, the primary goal of these studies was to construct biomimetic robots. However, it became apparent that simplified CPGs alone were not sufficient to replicate the diverse range of adaptive locomotive movements observed in living organisms. Factors such as sensory modulation, higher-level control, and cognitive components related to learning and memory needed to be considered. This necessitated the use of more complex, high-dimensional circuits, as well as novel materials and hardware, in both modeling and robotics. With advancements in high-power computing, artificial intelligence, big data processing, smart materials, and electronics, the possibility of designing a new generation of true bio-mimetic robots has emerged. These robots have the capability to imitate not only simple locomotion but also exhibit adaptive motor behavior and decision-making. This motivation serves as the foundation for the current review, which aims to analyze existing concepts and models of movement control systems. As an illustrative example, we focus on underwater movement and explore the fundamental biological concepts, as well as the mathematical and physical models that underlie locomotion and its various modulations.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Yu Gordleeva
- National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 23 Gagarin Ave., Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Russia; Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, 14 A. Nevskogo St., Kaliningrad, 236016, Russia; Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 9 Institutskiy Ln., Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Region, Russia
| | - I A Kastalskiy
- National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 23 Gagarin Ave., Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Russia; Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 9 Institutskiy Ln., Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Region, Russia.
| | - Yu A Tsybina
- National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 23 Gagarin Ave., Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Russia; I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), 2 Bol'shaya Pirogovskaya St., Moscow, 119435, Russia
| | - A V Ermolaeva
- National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 23 Gagarin Ave., Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Russia; I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), 2 Bol'shaya Pirogovskaya St., Moscow, 119435, Russia
| | - A E Hramov
- Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, 14 A. Nevskogo St., Kaliningrad, 236016, Russia; Saint Petersburg State University, 7-9 Universitetskaya Emb., Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia
| | - V B Kazantsev
- National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 23 Gagarin Ave., Nizhny Novgorod, 603022, Russia; Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, 14 A. Nevskogo St., Kaliningrad, 236016, Russia; Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, 9 Institutskiy Ln., Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Region, Russia
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Wilson AC, Sweeney LB. Spinal cords: Symphonies of interneurons across species. Front Neural Circuits 2023; 17:1146449. [PMID: 37180760 PMCID: PMC10169611 DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2023.1146449] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2023] [Accepted: 03/23/2023] [Indexed: 05/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Vertebrate movement is orchestrated by spinal inter- and motor neurons that, together with sensory and cognitive input, produce dynamic motor behaviors. These behaviors vary from the simple undulatory swimming of fish and larval aquatic species to the highly coordinated running, reaching and grasping of mice, humans and other mammals. This variation raises the fundamental question of how spinal circuits have changed in register with motor behavior. In simple, undulatory fish, exemplified by the lamprey, two broad classes of interneurons shape motor neuron output: ipsilateral-projecting excitatory neurons, and commissural-projecting inhibitory neurons. An additional class of ipsilateral inhibitory neurons is required to generate escape swim behavior in larval zebrafish and tadpoles. In limbed vertebrates, a more complex spinal neuron composition is observed. In this review, we provide evidence that movement elaboration correlates with an increase and specialization of these three basic interneuron types into molecularly, anatomically, and functionally distinct subpopulations. We summarize recent work linking neuron types to movement-pattern generation across fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Lora B. Sweeney
- Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), Klosterneuburg, Lower Austria, Austria
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Mechanisms Underlying the Recruitment of Inhibitory Interneurons in Fictive Swimming in Developing Xenopus laevis Tadpoles. J Neurosci 2023; 43:1387-1404. [PMID: 36693757 PMCID: PMC9987577 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0520-22.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2022] [Revised: 10/27/2022] [Accepted: 12/02/2022] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Developing spinal circuits generate patterned motor outputs while many neurons with high membrane resistances are still maturing. In the spinal cord of hatchling frog tadpoles of unknown sex, we found that the firing reliability in swimming of inhibitory interneurons with commissural and ipsilateral ascending axons was negatively correlated with their cellular membrane resistance. Further analyses showed that neurons with higher resistances had outward rectifying properties, low firing thresholds, and little delay in firing evoked by current injections. Input synaptic currents these neurons received during swimming, either compound, unitary current amplitudes, or unitary synaptic current numbers, were scaled with their membrane resistances, but their own synaptic outputs were correlated with membrane resistances of their postsynaptic partners. Analyses of neuronal dendritic and axonal lengths and their activities in swimming and cellular input resistances did not reveal a clear correlation pattern. Incorporating these electrical and synaptic properties into a computer swimming model produced robust swimming rhythms, whereas randomizing input synaptic strengths led to the breakdown of swimming rhythms, coupled with less synchronized spiking in the inhibitory interneurons. We conclude that the recruitment of these developing interneurons in swimming can be predicted by cellular input resistances, but the order is opposite to the motor-strength-based recruitment scheme depicted by Henneman's size principle. This form of recruitment/integration order in development before the emergence of refined motor control is progressive potentially with neuronal acquisition of mature electrical and synaptic properties, among which the scaling of input synaptic strengths with cellular input resistance plays a critical role.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The mechanisms on how interneurons are recruited to participate in circuit function in developing neuronal systems are rarely investigated. In 2-d-old frog tadpole spinal cord, we found the recruitment of inhibitory interneurons in swimming is inversely correlated with cellular input resistances, opposite to the motor-strength-based recruitment order depicted by Henneman's size principle. Further analyses showed the amplitude of synaptic inputs that neurons received during swimming was inversely correlated with cellular input resistances. Randomizing/reversing the relation between input synaptic strengths and membrane resistances in modeling broke down swimming rhythms. Therefore, the recruitment or integration of these interneurons is conditional on the acquisition of several electrical and synaptic properties including the scaling of input synaptic strengths with cellular input resistances.
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Larbi MC, Messa G, Jalal H, Koutsikou S. An early midbrain sensorimotor pathway is involved in the timely initiation and direction of swimming in the hatchling Xenopus laevis tadpole. Front Neural Circuits 2022; 16:1027831. [PMID: 36619662 PMCID: PMC9810627 DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2022.1027831] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2022] [Accepted: 11/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Vertebrate locomotion is heavily dependent on descending control originating in the midbrain and subsequently influencing central pattern generators in the spinal cord. However, the midbrain neuronal circuitry and its connections with other brainstem and spinal motor circuits has not been fully elucidated. Vertebrates with very simple nervous system, like the hatchling Xenopus laevis tadpole, have been instrumental in unravelling fundamental principles of locomotion and its suspraspinal control. Here, we use behavioral and electrophysiological approaches in combination with lesions of the midbrain to investigate its contribution to the initiation and control of the tadpole swimming in response to trunk skin stimulation. None of the midbrain lesions studied here blocked the tadpole's sustained swim behavior following trunk skin stimulation. However, we identified that distinct midbrain lesions led to significant changes in the latency and trajectory of swimming. These changes could partly be explained by the increase in synchronous muscle contractions on the opposite sides of the tadpole's body and permanent deflection of the tail from its normal position, respectively. We conclude that the tadpole's embryonic trunk skin sensorimotor pathway involves the midbrain, which harbors essential neuronal circuitry to significantly contribute to the appropriate, timely and coordinated selection and execution of locomotion, imperative to the animal's survival.
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Devyaterikov А, Palyanov А. A software system for modeling evolution in a population of organisms with vision, interacting with each other in 3D simulator. Vavilovskii Zhurnal Genet Selektsii 2022; 26:780-786. [PMID: 36714032 PMCID: PMC9840910 DOI: 10.18699/vjgb-22-94] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2022] [Revised: 10/01/2022] [Accepted: 10/08/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Development of computer models imitating the work of the nervous systems of living organisms, taking into account their morphology and electrophysiology, is one of the important and promising branches of computational neurobiology. It is often sought to model not only the nervous system, but also the body, muscles, sensory systems, and a virtual three-dimensional physical environment in which the behavior of an organism can be observed and which provides its sensory systems with adequate data streams that change in response to the movement of the organism. For a system of hundreds or thousands of neurons, one can still hope to determine the necessary parameters and get the functioning of the nervous system more or less similar to that of a living organism - as, for example, in a recent work on the modeling of the Xenopus tadpole. However, of greatest interest, both practical and fundamental, are organisms that have vision, a more complex nervous system, and, accordingly, significantly more advanced cognitive abilities. Determining the structure and parameters of the nervous systems of such organisms is an extremely difficult task. Moreover, at the cellular level they change over time, these including changes under the influence of the streams of sensory signals they perceive and the life experience gained, including the consequences of their own actions under certain circumstances. Knowing the structure of the nervous system and the number of nerve cells forming it, at least approximately, one can try to optimize the initial parameters of the model through artificial evolution, during which virtual organisms will interact and survive, each under the control of its own version of the nervous system. In addition, in principle, the rules by which the brain changes during the life of the organism can also evolve. This work is devoted to the development of a neuroevolutionary simulator capable of performing simultaneous functioning of virtual organisms that have a visual system and are able to interact with each other. The amount of computational resources required for the operation of models of the physical body of an organism, the nervous system and the virtual environment was estimated, and the performance of the simulator on a modern desktop computing system was determined depending on the number of simultaneously simulated organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- А.P. Devyaterikov
- A.P. Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, RussiaNovosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia
| | - А.Yu. Palyanov
- A.P. Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
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Feldotto B, Eppler JM, Jimenez-Romero C, Bignamini C, Gutierrez CE, Albanese U, Retamino E, Vorobev V, Zolfaghari V, Upton A, Sun Z, Yamaura H, Heidarinejad M, Klijn W, Morrison A, Cruz F, McMurtrie C, Knoll AC, Igarashi J, Yamazaki T, Doya K, Morin FO. Deploying and Optimizing Embodied Simulations of Large-Scale Spiking Neural Networks on HPC Infrastructure. Front Neuroinform 2022; 16:884180. [PMID: 35662903 PMCID: PMC9160925 DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2022.884180] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2022] [Accepted: 04/19/2022] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Simulating the brain-body-environment trinity in closed loop is an attractive proposal to investigate how perception, motor activity and interactions with the environment shape brain activity, and vice versa. The relevance of this embodied approach, however, hinges entirely on the modeled complexity of the various simulated phenomena. In this article, we introduce a software framework that is capable of simulating large-scale, biologically realistic networks of spiking neurons embodied in a biomechanically accurate musculoskeletal system that interacts with a physically realistic virtual environment. We deploy this framework on the high performance computing resources of the EBRAINS research infrastructure and we investigate the scaling performance by distributing computation across an increasing number of interconnected compute nodes. Our architecture is based on requested compute nodes as well as persistent virtual machines; this provides a high-performance simulation environment that is accessible to multi-domain users without expert knowledge, with a view to enable users to instantiate and control simulations at custom scale via a web-based graphical user interface. Our simulation environment, entirely open source, is based on the Neurorobotics Platform developed in the context of the Human Brain Project, and the NEST simulator. We characterize the capabilities of our parallelized architecture for large-scale embodied brain simulations through two benchmark experiments, by investigating the effects of scaling compute resources on performance defined in terms of experiment runtime, brain instantiation and simulation time. The first benchmark is based on a large-scale balanced network, while the second one is a multi-region embodied brain simulation consisting of more than a million neurons and a billion synapses. Both benchmarks clearly show how scaling compute resources improves the aforementioned performance metrics in a near-linear fashion. The second benchmark in particular is indicative of both the potential and limitations of a highly distributed simulation in terms of a trade-off between computation speed and resource cost. Our simulation architecture is being prepared to be accessible for everyone as an EBRAINS service, thereby offering a community-wide tool with a unique workflow that should provide momentum to the investigation of closed-loop embodiment within the computational neuroscience community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benedikt Feldotto
- Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Jochen Martin Eppler
- Simulation and Data Lab Neuroscience, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Institute for Advanced Simulation, JARA, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
| | - Cristian Jimenez-Romero
- Simulation and Data Lab Neuroscience, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Institute for Advanced Simulation, JARA, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
| | | | - Carlos Enrique Gutierrez
- Neural Computation Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, Japan
| | - Ugo Albanese
- Department of Excellence in Robotics and AI, The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pontedera, Italy
| | - Eloy Retamino
- Department of Computer Architecture and Technology, Research Centre for Information and Communication Technologies, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
| | - Viktor Vorobev
- Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Vahid Zolfaghari
- Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Alex Upton
- Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), ETH Zurich, Lugano, Switzerland
| | - Zhe Sun
- Image Processing Research Team, Center for Advanced Photonics, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
- Computational Engineering Applications Unit, Head Office for Information Systems and Cybersecurity, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
| | - Hiroshi Yamaura
- Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Morteza Heidarinejad
- Computational Engineering Applications Unit, Head Office for Information Systems and Cybersecurity, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
| | - Wouter Klijn
- Simulation and Data Lab Neuroscience, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Institute for Advanced Simulation, JARA, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
| | - Abigail Morrison
- Simulation and Data Lab Neuroscience, Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Institute for Advanced Simulation, JARA, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany
- Jülich Research Centre, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6), Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6), JARA BRAIN Institute I, Jülich, Germany
- Computer Science 3-Software Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
| | - Felipe Cruz
- Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), ETH Zurich, Lugano, Switzerland
| | - Colin McMurtrie
- Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), ETH Zurich, Lugano, Switzerland
| | - Alois C. Knoll
- Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Jun Igarashi
- Computational Engineering Applications Unit, Head Office for Information Systems and Cybersecurity, RIKEN, Wako, Japan
- Center for Computational Science, RIKEN, Kobe, Japan
| | - Tadashi Yamazaki
- Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Kenji Doya
- Neural Computation Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Okinawa, Japan
| | - Fabrice O. Morin
- Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Systems, Faculty of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
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