嗅觉信息编码辅助的大鼠机器人导航

Unlike traditional mechanical-robot, animal-robot expected to use powerful perceptual abilities of animals, such as smell, hearing and vision, to enhance the perception of the environment. This project intends to focus on extracting, analyzing and decoding the rat olfactory information, and use this information on the navigation of rat-robot. In order to achieve the accurate olfactory information from the rat central nervous system (CNS), intrinsic optical signal imaging and voltage sensitive dye (VSD) signal imaging on the surface of olfactory bulb will be used to mark the activity of olfactory bulb and obtain the odor map of different odors. According to these specific odor maps, micro-multi-electrode array will be implanted into the active region of olfactory bulb at mitral cell/plexiform layer to get the spike signals and local field potential (LFP) signals of neurons during the smelling procedure, which will be further analyzed to extract the odor information. Besides the analyzing and decoding of rat olfactory information, optogenetics technology combined with electrical stimulation and drug treatment will be introduced to further explain the encoding mechanism of olfactory information and study related neural circuits between olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex. The decoded olfactory information could be used as auxiliary navigation information for the rat-robot in a complex odor maze. Combining brain-machine interface (BCI) technology, neural cluster signal recording technology, spikes and LFP signals decoding technology and optogenetics technology, we expect to capture the olfactory information from the rat CNS system, establish analysis method, and find out the encoding discipline of odor information processing in this project. Neural signals decoding technologies can greatly improve the rat-robot's perception of the external environment and expand the using range of rat-robot. For example, the rat-robot can be used to find out illegal drugs in a confined space or can be used to looking for living people under dangerous situation. Above all, understanding the mechanism of olfactory information formation has great significance and may finally help to achieve the fusion between machine and organism brain.

本项目拟围绕植入式脑机接口技术，在已有的电刺激大鼠导航系统的基础上，通过提取大鼠的嗅觉信息、分析嗅觉信息的编码方式，将大鼠的嗅觉信息用于到大鼠机器人的导航过程中。具体的研究内容包括利用嗅球区内源信号成像、电压敏感染料成像等方法获取大鼠对特殊气味在嗅球中的空间编码模式和气味图谱；利用神经信号集群记录技术，获取大鼠嗅球区神经元锋电位和局部场电位信号，分析其特征值；结合光遗传学技术、电刺激、药物阻断等方法，深入解释嗅觉信息的编码方式和神经回路调控机制；实现复杂迷宫内嗅觉信息辅助的大鼠机器人导航。本项目通过研究如何从哺乳动物的嗅觉系统中捕获气味信息的方法，建立起分析气味信息的处理方式，将可以大大提高动物机器人对外界环境的感知能力，扩大动物机器人的实际使用范围，对于理解嗅觉信息形成的神经生物学机制也具有重要意义，为真正实现"脑机融合"打下基础。

动物机器人在实际应用过程中需要重点考虑对外界环境感知能力和行为控制的精确、稳定程度。本项目围绕基于植入式脑机接口技术的“大鼠机器人嗅觉信息提取和分析”和“复杂环境下的行为精确导航”两方面开展工作，完善了大鼠机器人复杂环境导航系统的实现效果。课题组通过建立针对大鼠嗅觉信息的慢性多通道神经集群信号采集实验平台，制备了可长期植入的光微电极阵列并建立光刺激和神经集群信号的同步记录方法，尝试了电生理和光学成像两种大鼠嗅觉信息获取的方法。利用神经信号集群记录技术采集获取大鼠嗅球区神经元锋电位和局部场电位信号，得到了大鼠在不同气味刺激下的嗅觉神经信号特征。同时利用嗅球区内源光学信号成像方法得到大鼠在不同气味刺激下嗅球的气味图谱，并进一步利用分类方法研究了大鼠对不同气味的嗅觉信息编码方式。在此基础上进一步结合已有的电刺激大鼠导航系统，通过将特定气味和奖赏指令的整合，实现了大鼠对特定气味的识别。针对大鼠机器人复杂环境下的行为精确导航，我们结合光遗传学技术，深入研究了大鼠机器人各控制指令的潜在神经学机制，实现了对大鼠机器人“前进”和“停止”指令的光刺激控制。在此基础上进一步发现了大鼠机器人新的转向控制刺激位点，成功实现了大鼠机器人“左/右转向”指令的定量化分析，并以此构建了全新的大鼠机器人行为控制系统，对大鼠机器人左右转向的神经学机制做出了解释。