Insect neurons

Tangential cells in the fly lobula plate respond to complex motion patterns within their large receptive field. We have designed stimuli that enable independent stimulation of different subregions within the receptive field (Fig. 1A). The spike output can be summarized by compact descriptors (Fig. 1C) and then modelled (Fig. 1D) using simple circuits (Fig. 1B; see Neri 2007).

Figure 1 The integration properties of motion signals across the receptive field of tangential cells can be studied using independently moving wavelets stimulating different subregions of the receptive field (A). The structure in C captures the integration between motion signals at successive temporal intervals. This structure can be captured (D) via simple computational circuits (B).

Using this approach, we have demonstrated that tangential cells (H1/V1) combine motion signals according to specific computational principles that share similarities with known mechanisms in primate motion-sensitive cortex (Neri 2006). They also carry implicit information about the structure of the moving stimulus that may indicate a potential role in motion segmentation (Neri & Laughlin 2005).

Relevant publications:

• Neri P Fast-scale adaptive changes of directional tuning in fly tangential cells are explained by a static nonlinearity 2007 Journal of Experimental Biology 210 3199-3208

• Neri P Spatial integration of optic flow signals in fly motion-sensitive neurons 2006 Journal of Neurophysiology 95 1608-1619

• Neri P, Laughlin SB Global versus local adaptation in fly motion-sensitive neurons 2005 Proc. R. Soc. London B 272 2243-9

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