Multifunctionality in embodied agents: Three levels of neural reuse

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that an embodied agent can achieve multifunctionality through neural reuse at multiple levels without neuromodulation, emphasizing the importance of the whole brain-body-environment system.

Contribution

It introduces a framework showing neural reuse at structural, autonomous, and transient levels, including transient dynamics reuse without neuromodulation.

Findings

Agent exhibits multifunctionality using same sensory-motor systems

Neural reuse occurs at three levels: structural, autonomous, transient

Transient dynamics reuse requires whole system analysis

Abstract

The brain in conjunction with the body is able to adapt to new environments and perform multiple behaviors through reuse of neural resources and transfer of existing behavioral traits. Although mechanisms that underlie this ability are not well understood, they are largely attributed to neuromodulation. In this work, we demonstrate that an agent can be multifunctional using the same sensory and motor systems across behaviors, in the absence of modulatory mechanisms. Further, we lay out the different levels at which neural reuse can occur through a dynamical filtering of the brain-body-environment system's operation: structural network, autonomous dynamics, and transient dynamics. Notably, transient dynamics reuse could only be explained by studying the brain-body-environment system as a whole and not just the brain. The multifunctional agent we present here demonstrates neural reuse at all three levels.