Scanning and active sampling behaviours emerge from conserved insect neural circuits

Navigating insects often pause and rotate to sample their surroundings, behaviours termed scanning. These and other active sampling behaviours embody navigational uncertainty, and are key for spatial learning, yet their neural basis remains unclear and existing models impose scanning behaviours rather than explaining its emergence. Here, we show that desert ants scanning dynamics can emerge spontaneously from the same conserved neural circuits used for goal-directed navigation, without requiring a specialized scanning module. We built a biologically grounded model combining central complex (CX) steering and lateral accessory lobe (LAL) oscillators, and added a downstream stochastic inhibitio