Statistics of Decision Making in the Leech

Abstract

Animals continuously decide among different behaviors, but, even in invertebrates, the mechanisms underlying choice and decision are unknown. In this article, leech spontaneous behavior was tracked and quantified for up to 12 h. We obtained a statistical characterization, in space and time domains, of the decision processes underlying selection of behavior in the leech. We found that the spatial distribution of leech position in a uniform environment is isotropic (the same in all directions), but this isotropy is broken in the presence of localized external stimuli. In the time domain, transitions among behaviors can be described by a Markov process, the structure of which (allowed states and transitions) is highly conserved across individuals. Finally, a wide range of recurrent, deterministic motifs was identified in the apparently irregular and unstructured exploratory behavior. These results provide a rigorous description of the inner dynamics that control the spontaneous and continuous flow of behavioral decisions in the leech.