Can the Insect Path Integration Memory be a Bump Attractor?

Abstract

Many animal species are able to return to their nest after a foraging excursion without using familiar visual cues to guide them. They accomplish this by using a navigation competence known as path integration, which is vital in environments that do not have prominent visual features. To perform path integration, an animal maintains a running estimate of the distance and direction to its origin as it moves. This distance and direction estimate needs to be maintained in memory until the animal uses it to return to its nest. However, the neural substrate of this memory remains uncertain. A common hypothesis is that the information is maintained in a bump attractors state. We test the bump attractor hypothesis and find that its predictions are inconsistent with the path integration behaviour of ants, thus highlighting the need for alternative models of path integration memory.