Linking vision and action in Drosophila
-
1
Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
My lab’s goal is to extract principles of neural circuit operation that underlie complex behavior in Drosophila melanogaster. Powerful genetic tools available in the fly allow us to target selected subsets of neurons and manipulate and record their activity using genetically encoded calcium indicators and electrophysiology. Over the past few years, we have developed preparations that permit physiological recordings from identified neurons in the central brain of tethered walking and flying flies during open- and closed-loop behavior. In our initial experiments we demonstrated that calcium responses of the motion-sensitive horizontal system lobula plate tangential cells in the early visual system are correlated with the tethered fly’s optomotor behavior. We also found that these neurons modulate their response gain and temporal frequency (motion-speed) tuning depending on behavioral state. I will briefly review these results, and describe more recent findings from our exploration of a deeper brain region called the central complex. Studies across a range of insects, including locusts, cockroaches and Drosophila, suggest that the central complex is an adaptive sensorimotor processing center, with a role in sensory-guided orientation, navigation, place-learning and motor coordination. We are using a combination of experimental and computational techniques in an effort to characterize sensorimotor representations and circuit dynamics in the region in the context of behavior.
Keywords:
Behavior,
Drosophila,
gain modulation,
motor,
sensory,
state dependence
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Invited Symposium (only for people who have been invited to a particular symposium)
Topic:
Sensorimotor Integration
Citation:
Jayaraman
V
(2012). Linking vision and action in Drosophila.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00214
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
29 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Vivek Jayaraman, Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, 20147, United States, vivek@janelia.hhmi.org