Abstract
Visual environments may simultaneously comprise stimuli of different significance. Often such stimuli require incompatible responses. Selective visual attention allows an animal to respond exclusively to the stimuli at a certain location in the visual field. In the process of establishing its focus of attention the animal can be influenced by external cues. Here we characterize the behavioral properties and neural mechanism of cueing in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. A cue can be attractive, repulsive or ineffective depending upon (e.g.) its visual properties and location in the visual field. Dopamine signaling in the brain is required to maintain the effect of cueing once the cue has disappeared. Raising or lowering dopamine at the synapse abolishes this after-effect. Specifically, dopamine is necessary and sufficient in the αβ-lobes of the mushroom bodies. Evidence is provided for an involvement of the αβposterior Kenyon cells.
Highlights
Flies (Drosophila melanogaster) like other animals and humans can restrict their visual responses to parts of the visual field [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The fly is assumed to have a focus of attention (FoA) which it can spontaneously shift to particular areas of its visual field and to be more likely to respond to visual stimuli occurring in this region than elsewhere
To address the effects of cueing on selective visual attention (SVA), one of the two stripes was oscillated before the displacement (Fig 1B)
Summary
Flies (Drosophila melanogaster) like other animals and humans can restrict their visual responses to parts of the visual field [1,2,3,4,5,6]. This property of vision is called selective visual attention (SVA). In flies SVA has been studied mainly in stationary flight of tethered animals Under these highly restricted experimental conditions visual stimuli can be presented in defined regions of the fly's visual field and the fly shows by its intended turning (yaw-torque) to which of the stimuli it responds. Whether this implies that neither stripe happens to be close enough to the FoA is not known
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