Drosophila neurons involved in the integration of conflicting visual input

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Drosophila neurons involved in the integration of conflicting visual input Lisa M. Fenk1*, Karin Panser1, Andreas Poehlmann1, John Stowers1, 2 and Andrew D. Straw1 1 Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Austria 2 Vienna University of Technology, Automation and Control Institute (ACIN), Austria Sensory input from different modalities, and even within a single sensory modality, can be conflicting. The desired resulting behavioral response may consist of a response to only one stimulus or a mixture of the responses that would be elicited by the individual stimuli alone. We investigated the interaction of two well characterized and potentially conflicting pathways in the fly: optomotor response and object approach. We measured the turning response of rigidly tethered Drosophila placed in a small arena and exposed to visual stimuli. In this study we confronted the flies with a random pixel stripe in artificial closed loop in front of a random pixel panoramic stimulus that is stationary for a few minutes and then starts to slowly oscillate sinusoidally. In a third phase the stripe is invisible and only the background movement is shown. As expected, flies display a pronounced stripe fixation behavior when the background is stationary, i.e. the stripe position is narrowly distributed around the position directly in front of the fly. In the conflict period, flies still show stripe fixation behavior but the stable position of the stripe is shifted about +/- 20 deg from the position in front of the fly, depending on the direction of the background movement. In addition, most flies switch from time to time to a more pronounced optomotor response resulting in the stripe to spin around the arena at a high velocity. With the Gal4-UAS system, we silenced specific visual interneurons and tested for associated deficits in the visually guided flight behavior. We describe a set of heterolateral interneurons that play a role in this switching behavior. If we inhibit chemical synapses by expressing the tetanus toxin light chain in the neurons, flies show a significantly better stripe fixation quality as compared to control flies, switching less to optomotor stabilization. Interestingly, our data suggest that the response to wide field motion in the absence of a target in closed loop is unaffected. This study pinpoints a set of visual interneurons that specifically influence the flies’ behavior in the conflict period and that might thus be interpreted as part of a visual decision making circuit in flies. Acknowledgements This work was supported by IMP core funding, ERC Starting Grant StG-2011-281884 and WWTF CS11-029 to ADS. Keywords: Drosophila, optomotor response, stripe fixation, neural circuits, conflicting stimuli Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: The visual control of flight and locomotion Citation: Fenk LM, Panser K, Poehlmann A, Stowers J and Straw AD (2019). Drosophila neurons involved in the integration of conflicting visual input. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00051 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: 27 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Lisa M Fenk, Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna, 1030, Austria, lisa.fenk@rockefeller.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Lisa M Fenk Karin Panser Andreas Poehlmann John Stowers Andrew D Straw Google Lisa M Fenk Karin Panser Andreas Poehlmann John Stowers Andrew D Straw Google Scholar Lisa M Fenk Karin Panser Andreas Poehlmann John Stowers Andrew D Straw PubMed Lisa M Fenk Karin Panser Andreas Poehlmann John Stowers Andrew D Straw Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.