Original Research Article
Reciprocal inhibitory connections within a neural network for rotational optic-flow processing
Juergen Haag 1, 2* and Alexander Borst 1, 2
1 Bernstein Center Munich, University Hospital Munich Grosshadern, Germany
2 Department of Systems and Computational Neurobiology, Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology, Germany
2 Department of Systems and Computational Neurobiology, Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology, Germany
Neurons in the visual system of the blowfly have large receptive fields that are selective for specific optic flow fields. Here, we studied the neural mechanisms underlying flow–field selectivity in proximal Vertical System (VS)-cells, a particular subset of tangential cells in the fly. These cells have local preferred directions that are distributed such as to match the flow field occurring during a rotation of the fly. However, the neural circuitry leading to this selectivity is not fully understood. Through dual intracellular recordings from proximal VS cells and other tangential cells, we characterized the specific wiring between VS cells themselves and between proximal VS cells and horizontal sensitive tangential cells. We discovered a spiking neuron (Vi) involved in this circuitry that has not been described before. This neuron turned out to be connected to proximal VS cells via gap junctions and, in addition, it was found to be inhibitory onto VS1.
Keywords: motion detection, insect, vision, gap-junction, flow field
Copyright: © 2007 Haag and Borst. This is an open-access article subject to an exclusive license agreement between the authors and the Frontiers Research Foundation, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited.
*Correspondence: Juergen Haag, Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology, Department of Systems and Computational Neurobiology, Am Klopferspitz 18, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany. e-mail: haag@neuro.mpg.de
Citation: Haag J and Borst A (2007) Reciprocal inhibitory connections within a neural network for rotational optic-flow processing. Front. Neurosci. 1,1:111-121. doi:10.3389/neuro.01.1.1.008.2007
Received: 15 August 2007; paper pending published: 01 September 2007; accepted: 01 September 2007; published online: 15 October 2007.
Edited by:
Idan Segev, Hebrew University, Israel
Reviewed by:
Hermann Cuntz, University College London, UK
Egidio D`Angelo, University of Pavia, Italy
Donald Edward, Georgia State University, USA
Egidio D`Angelo, University of Pavia, Italy
Donald Edward, Georgia State University, USA
*Correspondence: Juergen Haag, Max-Planck-Institute of Neurobiology, Department of Systems and Computational Neurobiology, Am Klopferspitz 18, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany. e-mail: haag@neuro.mpg.de
