BMI Distinguished Seminar // Mitra Hartmann: Touching the world and the wind: sensorimotor control and flow sensing with whiskers

In rodents, the whisker (vibrissal) system supports behaviors ranging from locomotor guidance and object exploration to social interactions and anemotaxis (flow sensing). This versatility makes whisker-dependent behavior a powerful lens on sensorimotor control. The first part of the talk describes use of the whisker system to study embodied sensing and closed-loop sensorimotor control. On the sensory side, I will present models of whisker mechanics and signal encoding by primary sensory neurons. On the motor side, I will describe models of whisker musculature and emerging insights into the circuits that generate whisker movements. I will then outline key challenges in linking sensing to movement within an integrated closed-loop framework. The second part of the talk will highlight how whiskers interact with moving air. Bending and vibration encode direction and speed, including regimes where vibrations emerge at subcritical Reynolds numbers through coupled structural nonlinearities and fluid-structure interactions.