Consistent coordination patterns provide near perfect behavior decoding in a comprehensive motor program for insect flight

Precise spike timing encoding is present in many motor systems, but is not frequently utilized to decode behavior or to examine how coordination is achieved across many motor units. Furthermore, testing whether the same coordinated sets of muscles control different movements is difficult without a complete motor representation at the level of the currency of control – action potentials. Here, we demonstrate nearly perfect decoding of six hawk moth flight behavior states elicited in response to wide-field drifting visual stimuli about the flight axes – pitch, roll, and yaw – using a comprehensive, spike-resolved motor program. A simple linear decoding pipeline is sufficient to predict behavior, but only if precise timing information in included. We also demonstrate that as few as half the muscles can be used to retain this near perfect decoding performance, linking coordination to redundancy in encoding across the entire moth flight motor program. We then use this comprehensive motor rep..., EMGs were taken from the 10 most important muscles for wing control from Manduca sexta while tethered moths flapped in a visual arena. The responded to a visual stimulus while simultaneous recordings of the spike resolved motor program and 6 DoF forces and torques were acquired. The comprehensive motor program of the moth, Manduca sexta, is composed of the 10 muscles (5 bilateral pairs) that accomplish nearly all control of the wings. On each side of the animal there is a primary flight power muscle for the downstroke (Dorsolongitudinal muscle –DLM) and one for the upstroke (Dorsoventral muscle –DVM). There are also three small muscles that produce an order of magnitude less force, but tweak, tension, and pitch the wingstroke to achieve control (“steering” muscles –basalar, subalar, 3rdaxillary). Each of these muscles is composed of one or few motor unit(s) and so we can read off the individual spikes from each recording. This gives us a precisely timed, spike resolved motor program tha..., , # Data for : Consistent coordination patterns provide near perfect behavior decoding in a comprehensive motor program for insect flight

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zgmsbccnt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.zgmsbccnt)

## Description of the data and file structure

**Files and variables**

File: Moth01_20200113_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth02_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth03_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth04_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth05_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth06_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth07_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth08_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v3.mat, Moth09_20200114_AnnotatedToShare_v.mat

Description: Combined data for each moth (01 to 09)

This dataset is from N = 9 moths that responded to six different stimulus conditions, for approx. 20 seconds per condition. We simultaneously recorded the six forces and torques produced (FT) and the spiking activity from 10 muscles, 5 on the left (L) and right (R) sides each: the...