Neural Network Filters Weak and Strong External Stimuli to Help Brain Make "Yes or No" Decisions

A University of Michigan-led research team has uncovered a neural network that enables Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies to convert external stimuli of varying intensities into a "yes or no" decision about when to act. The research, described in Current Biology, helps to decode the biological mechanism that the fruit fly nervous system uses to convert a gradient of sensory information into a binary behavioral response. The findings offer up new insights that may be relevant to how such decisions work in other species, and could possibly even be applied to help artificial intelligence machines learn to categorize information. Senior study author Bing Ye, PhD, a faculty member at the University of Michigan Life Science Institute (LSI), believes the mechanism uncovered could have far-reaching applications. "There is a dominant idea in our field that these decisions are made by the accumulation of evidence, which takes time," Ye said.