Commentary: Burst Firing in a Motion-Sensitive Neural Pathway Correlates with Expansion Properties of Looming Objects That Evoke Avoidance Behaviors.

Jessica L Fox

doi:10.3389/fnint.2015.00068

Abstract

Commentary: Burst Firing in a Motion-Sensitive Neural Pathway Correlates with Expansion Properties of Looming Objects That Evoke Avoidance Behaviors.

Highlights

What is the neural code? This essential question has been the driving force behind much research in sensory and motor neuroscience, spurring investigations of diverse animals, brain areas, and behaviors
The reflexive response of locusts to looming stimuli is a classic model in neuroethology, with a small number of neurons encoding the expanding stimulus and with spike trains resulting in a robust jump response or wing steering maneuvers
The visual expansion of a dark circle on the locust’s retina, representing a looming threat, results in a train of spikes in the lobula giant motion detector (LGMD) that signal to a descending interneuron, the descending contralateral motion detector (DCMD) (Gabbiani et al, 1999)

Summary

Introduction

What is the neural code? This essential question has been the driving force behind much research in sensory and motor neuroscience, spurring investigations of diverse animals, brain areas, and behaviors. The reflexive response of locusts to looming stimuli is a classic model in neuroethology, with a small number of neurons encoding the expanding stimulus and with spike trains resulting in a robust jump response or wing steering maneuvers. Previous analysis of the DCMD response to a looming stimulus found that spike rate increases as the stimulus expands, peaking within 200 ms of the predicted collision and peaking sooner when the stimulus is moving faster.

Results

Conclusion