[Seminar] Neural control of cuttlefish camouflage and octopus arms

Title:

Neural control of cuttlefish camouflage and octopus arms

Abstract:

Cephalopods (e.g., octopus, squid, and cuttlefish) have the most complex nervous system among invertebrates. Their extraordinary brains that have evolved independently from our own for over 600 million years, with unique neural algorithms such as those for color-change behavior and soft-body control. Both demand neural systems to generate extremely high-dimensional motor outputs. Cuttlefish orchestrate the size change of millions of skin pigment cells to generate camouflage patterns within seconds, while octopus can move their arms with nearly infinite degrees of freedom. By developing a large-scale imaging system to simultaneously track over 100,000 cells in freely moving cuttlefish, we uncovered an exploratory and iterative strategy that optimizes their camouflage patterns. Through 3D motion tracking of octopus arm movements, we further revealed the distributed neural control system underlying these complex motions. These findings promise to inspire new theories and applications in soft robotics and artificial intelligence.

Speaker:

Dr. Xitong Liang, Assistant Professor, School of Life Sciences, Peking University.