Bats run the 3D mapping problem at 1 cm resolution.
CA1 place fields in flying Rousettus aegyptiacus are volumetric, isotropic,and remap across sessions
coexisting with head-direction cells encoding azimuth, pitch and roll.
No surface-bound species exhibits this geometry.
Yartsev & Ulanovsky, Science 340:367 (2013)
Finkelstein et al., Nature 517:159 (2015)
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The field is moving from ground to air.
Wave 1 β fly: perception circuits.
Wave 2 β mouse: cortical columns.
Wave 3 β bat: active sensing +volumetric cognition.
If the next decade of connectomics is airborne, the next decade of AI is too.
Flies gave us the full-brain connectome (FlyWire, 2024).
Mice gave us the cubic millimeter (MICrONS, 2025).
Bats add what both lack: a brain evolved for real-time active sensing in 3D.
The problems bats solve daily are the problems AI still fails β echo scene analysis at 0.5 ms, volumetric navigation, delay-based ranging.
Modern connectomics has mapped the fly It has mapped the mouse.
It has not yet mapped a brain that flies β and actively senses its world.
Bats are the missing case: echolocation demands sub-millisecond auditory computation; flight demands volumetric cognitive maps.
That is the ACx project.
0x357fe078c2d95986143de84190f273a742041e1e
Connectomics has spent two decades on the ground.
The fly: mapped. The mouse: mapped. The next model system flies β and actively senses its world.
Bats are the new frontier for AI and brain science: active sensing,
sub-millisecond timing, volumetric maps.
We are building that atlas now.
Horseshoe bats listen through an acoustic fovea.
Cochlear filters tuned to the CF2 harmonic reach Q β 400 β they resolve a few hertz at 61 kHz, among the sharpest in vertebrate hearing.
Flying bats compensate for Doppler shift within Β±2 Hz, keeping echoes inside that filter at full speed.
Schnitzler, Nature 219:79 (1968)
Neuweiler, Naturwissenschaften 77:345 (1990)
Modern connectomics has mapped the fly It has mapped the mouse.
It has not yet mapped a brain that flies β and actively senses its world.
Bats are the missing case: echolocation demands sub-millisecond auditory computation; flight demands volumetric cognitive maps.
That is the ACx project.
0x357fe078c2d95986143de84190f273a742041e1e
Modern connectomics has mapped the fly It has mapped the mouse.
It has not yet mapped a brain that flies β and actively senses its world.
Bats are the missing case: echolocation demands sub-millisecond auditory computation; flight demands volumetric cognitive maps.
That is the ACx project.
0x357fe078c2d95986143de84190f273a742041e1e
Delay-tuned neurons convert time into space.
In Pteronotus parnellii, FMβFM combination-sensitive cells respond
only when the echo follows the call at a preferred delay β 0.4 to 18 ms.
Arrayed across the auditory cortex, they tile an axis of distance: a neural ruler.
Suga & O'Neill, Science 203:69 (1979)
Suga, J Exp Biol 146:277 (1984)
#Neuroethology #Echolocation
Modern connectomics has mapped the fly It has mapped the mouse.
It has not yet mapped a brain that flies β and actively senses its world.
Bats are the missing case: echolocation demands sub-millisecond auditory computation; flight demands volumetric cognitive maps.
That is the ACx project.
#Connectomics #Neuroscience