FliMax, a novel stimulus device for panoramic and highspeed presentation of behaviourally generated optic flow

A high-speed panoramic visual stimulation device is introduced which is suitable to analyse visual interneurons during stimulation with rapid image displacements as experienced by fast moving animals. The responses of an identified motion sensitive neuron in the visual system of the blowfly to behaviourally generated image sequences are very complex and hard to predict from the established input circuitry of the neuron. This finding suggests that the computational significance of visual interneurons can only be assessed if they are characterised not only by conventional stimuli as are often used for systems analysis, but also by behaviourally relevant input.