A computational model for the insect brain

Abstract

As seen in the Chap. 1, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is an extremely interesting insect because it shows a wealth of complex behaviors, despite its small brain. Nowadays genetic techniques allow to knock out the function of defined parts or genes in the Drosophila brain. Together with specific mutants which show similar defects in those parts or genes, hypothesis about the functions of every single brain part can be drawn. Based upon the results reported in the Chap. 1, a computational model of the fly Drosophila has been designed and implemented to emulate the functionalities of the two relevant centres present in insects: the Mushroom Bodies and the Central Complex. Their actions and inter-actions are adapted from the neurobiological prospective to a computational implementation. A complete block scheme is proposed where the proved or conjectured interactions among the identified blocks are depicted. Several simulations results are finally provided to demonstrate the capability of the system both considering specific parts of the complete structure for comparison with insect experiments, and the whole model for more complex simulations.