State-switching navigation strategies in Caenorhabditis elegans are beneficial for chemotaxis - PubMed
5 hours ago
- #state-switching strategies
- #chemotaxis enhancement
- #C. elegans navigation
- Animals, such as C. elegans, use different strategies like steering (small heading changes) and turns (large reorientations) for navigation.
- C. elegans navigation is described by a two-state-switching model with persistent internal states (steer-enriched and turn-enriched) that last seconds, rather than being solely sensory-driven.
- Sensory input modulates transitions between these states, creating 'directed turns' that enhance gradient-climbing performance, as shown through measurements, genetic perturbations, and reinforcement learning modeling.
- This state-switching principle is functionally beneficial for chemotaxis and may generalize across species and contexts.