{"id":3196,"date":"2025-03-25T11:34:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T01:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/?p=3196"},"modified":"2025-03-25T11:34:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T01:34:37","slug":"how-flexible-navigation-strategies-emerge-and-evolve-in-freely-moving-non-human-primates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/?p=3196","title":{"rendered":"How flexible navigation strategies emerge and evolve in freely moving non-human primates?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nada El Mahmoudi, Francesca Lanzarini, Farzad Ziaie Nezhad, Deepak Surendran, Jean Laurens. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2025.03.22.644580v1\"><strong>From Exploration to Structured Navigation: Learning Dynamics of Freely Moving Marmosets during Foraging<\/strong><\/a>. bioRxiv 2025.03.22.644580; doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2025.03.22.644580<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Abstract<br \/>\n&#8220;<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Spatial memory plays a crucial role in guiding navigation and optimizing foraging efficiency.<\/span><\/strong> While extensive research has explored navigation strategies in rodents, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">how these strategies emerge and evolve in freely moving non-human primates remains poorly understood<\/span><\/strong>. Here, we conducted a longitudinal study <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">to investigate the dynamics of spatial learning and navigation strategies in freely moving common marmosets<\/span><\/strong> (Callithrix jacchus) performing a foraging task in a semi-naturalistic environment. Marmosets were trained to collect rewards from eight spatially distributed dispensers. Using behavioral analyses combined with machine learning methods, including unsupervised clustering and probabilistic modeling, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">we examined how their navigation strategies evolved over time<\/span><\/strong>. Our results reveal a progressive improvement in performance, accompanied by an increasing structuring of movement patterns. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Initially, marmosets exhibited exploratory behaviors<\/span><\/strong>, with high transition variability between food dispensers. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">As training progressed, their navigation became more structured,<\/span><\/strong> with <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">the emergence of recurrent transition patterns and a shift towards route-based navigation<\/span><\/strong>. However, despite this increasing regularity, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">their navigation retained a degree of flexibility, allowing them to dynamically adapt their routes rather than following a fixed sequence<\/span><\/strong>. These findings suggest that marmosets <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">develop structured yet flexible navigation strategies through experience<\/span><\/strong>. Their behavior reflects a<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"> balance between efficiency and adaptability<\/span> <\/strong>and supports the emergence of a flexible representation of space. Our study provides novel insights into spatial memory development in primates and highlights the value of semi-naturalistic paradigms for studying navigation strategies and spatial learning in freely moving animals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Nada El Mahmoudi, Francesca Lanzarini, Farzad Ziaie Nezhad, Deepak Surendran, Jean Laurens. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2025.03.22.644580v1\"><strong>From Exploration to Structured Navigation: Learning Dynamics of Freely Moving Marmosets during Foraging<\/strong><\/a>. bioRxiv 2025.03.22.644580; doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2025.03.22.644580<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nada El Mahmoudi, Francesca Lanzarini, Farzad Ziaie Nezhad, Deepak Surendran, Jean Laurens. From Exploration to Structured Navigation: Learning Dynamics of Freely Moving Marmosets during Foraging. bioRxiv 2025.03.22.644580; doi: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1101\/2025.03.22.644580 Abstract &#8220;Spatial memory plays a crucial role in guiding navigation and optimizing foraging efficiency. While extensive research has explored navigation strategies in rodents, how these strategies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[987,96,346,519],"tags":[1451,1450,312,1336,873,1447,1448,358,1449,1446],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3197,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3196\/revisions\/3197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}