Suppression of motion vision during course-changing, but not course-stabilizing, navigational turns

AbstractVisual motion detection is among the best understood neuronal computations. One assumed behavioural role is to detect self-motion and to counteract involuntary course deviations, extensively investigated in tethered walking or flying flies. In free flight, however, any deviation from a straight course is signalled by both the visual system as well as by proprioceptive mechanoreceptors called ‘halteres’, which are the equivalent of the vestibular system in vertebrates. Therefore, it is yet unclear to what extent motion vision contributes to course control, or whether straight flight is completely controlled by proprioceptive feedback from the halteres. To answer these questions, we genetically rendered flies motion-blind by blocking their primary motion-sensitive neurons and quantified their free-flight performance. We found that such flies have difficulties maintaining a straight flight trajectory, much like control flies in the dark. By unilateral wing clipping, we generated an asymmetry in propulsory force and tested the ability of flies to compensate for this perturbation. While wild-type flies showed a remarkable level of compensation, motion-blind animals exhibited pronounced circling behaviour. Our results therefore unequivocally demonstrate that motion vision is necessary to fly straight under realistic conditions.

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Motion Vision

Encyclopedia of Neuroscience ◽

10.1007/978-3-540-29678-2_3574 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 2413-2413

Keyword(s):

Motion Vision

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Towards an Ecology of Motion Vision

Motion Vision ◽

10.1007/978-3-642-56550-2_18 ◽

2001 ◽

pp. 333-369 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Michael P. Eckert ◽

Jochen Zeil

Keyword(s):

Motion Vision

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Modelling Drosophila motion vision pathways for decoding the direction of translating objects against cluttered moving backgrounds

Biological Cybernetics ◽

10.1007/s00422-020-00841-x ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 114 (4-5) ◽

pp. 443-460

Author(s):

Qinbing Fu ◽

Shigang Yue

Keyword(s):

Motion Perception ◽

Computational Modelling ◽

Fruit Fly ◽

Neural System ◽

Direction Selectivity ◽

System Model ◽

Wide Field ◽

Motion Vision ◽

Preferred Direction ◽

On And Off Pathways

Abstract Decoding the direction of translating objects in front of cluttered moving backgrounds, accurately and efficiently, is still a challenging problem. In nature, lightweight and low-powered flying insects apply motion vision to detect a moving target in highly variable environments during flight, which are excellent paradigms to learn motion perception strategies. This paper investigates the fruit fly Drosophila motion vision pathways and presents computational modelling based on cutting-edge physiological researches. The proposed visual system model features bio-plausible ON and OFF pathways, wide-field horizontal-sensitive (HS) and vertical-sensitive (VS) systems. The main contributions of this research are on two aspects: (1) the proposed model articulates the forming of both direction-selective and direction-opponent responses, revealed as principal features of motion perception neural circuits, in a feed-forward manner; (2) it also shows robust direction selectivity to translating objects in front of cluttered moving backgrounds, via the modelling of spatiotemporal dynamics including combination of motion pre-filtering mechanisms and ensembles of local correlators inside both the ON and OFF pathways, which works effectively to suppress irrelevant background motion or distractors, and to improve the dynamic response. Accordingly, the direction of translating objects is decoded as global responses of both the HS and VS systems with positive or negative output indicating preferred-direction or null-direction translation. The experiments have verified the effectiveness of the proposed neural system model, and demonstrated its responsive preference to faster-moving, higher-contrast and larger-size targets embedded in cluttered moving backgrounds.

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