Researchers at the University of Sheffield have identified a high-frequency jumping feature in the brains and eyes of fruit flies and other insects. This discovery explains how insects react with precision and speed.
The findings suggest that robots and autonomous vehicles could become smarter and more energy efficient by adopting movement based methods for gathering information rather than relying solely on traditional computer processing.
The study indicates that house flies and fruit flies do not process visual information in a passive manner. Instead, these insects twitch their bodies in synchronisation with their visual environment. These small movements, including rapid eye movements known as saccades, assist their brains in receiving clearer and faster information about their surroundings.
Professor Mikko Juusola of the School of Biosciences stated: “Our findings reveal a fundamentally new way of thinking about how brains compute information.”
According to the research published in Nature Communications, when an insect performs a sharp turn, its brain enters a different state that allows it to focus on fast moving information. This mechanism helps insects overcome certain physical and neural constraints that might otherwise limit their perception, assisting in behaviours such as predator avoidance and high speed flight.
Professor Juusola, the senior author of the study, noted: “We’ve demonstrated how even the smallest brains can solve complex problems at extraordinary speeds.”
The findings suggest that future artificial intelligence systems, particularly those used in robotics and real time decision making, could be updated by adopting principles of movement driven information processing. Dr Jouni Takalo, who led the development of the statistical model for the work, stated: “The findings challenge traditional models of neural processing, which assume that information flows through fixed pathways with built-in delays.”
The research proposes a framework where vision is a collective effort involving an insect’s movement, its visual input and the response from the brain.
Dr Jouni Takalo added: “Instead, the results support a new framework where sight is a collective effort between an insect’s movement, its visual input and its brain’s response.”
Image source: Pixabay
