Construction of a brain-machine hybrid system to analyze adaptive behavior of silkworm moth

Abstract

We have created a brain-machine hybrid system (BMHS) which is able to solve the chemical plume tracking (CPT) problem using the brain of the male silkworm moth. The purpose of the system is to investigate adaptability which results from interactions between brain, body, and environment. In this paper, we describe a BMHS architecture and experiments to verify that the behavior of the BMHS is similar to that of a silkworm moth. The BMHS is a kind of cyborg system in which the body of a living being is replaced by a mobile robot and the organism's brain is used to control the robot. The artificial body is controlled by motor commands for the original body that are extracted from a signal recorded from the brain. For that purpose, a small measurement system to record signals was created and a method to reconstruct the motor commands from the signals was established. We demonstrate that the BMHS can behave like a silkworm moth. We compared the trajectories of moths with the trajectories of the BMHS incorporating the same individual moths. Through the experiments we confirmed that the system can solve the CPT problem. Our system has the potential to reveal principles of adaptability in silkworm moth behavior.