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Sensorimotor experience remaps visual input to a heading-direction network.
Yvette E Fisher1, Jenny Lu1, Isabel D'Alessandro1
1Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Nature
|November 22, 2019
Summary
Fruit flies use
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Animal Behavior
Background:
- Drosophila compass neurons integrate self-movement for heading estimation.
- Visual cues enhance heading accuracy, with R neurons mediating input.
- The mechanism of visual cue integration into the compass network remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate how visual cues are integrated into the Drosophila compass neuron network.
- Determine the role of R neurons in mediating visual input to compass neurons.
- Elucidate the plasticity of visual processing in the compass system.
Main Methods:
- In vivo whole-cell recordings in Drosophila.
- Ensemble calcium imaging.
- Exploration of altered virtual-reality environments.
Main Results:
- Visual cues evoke synaptic inhibition in compass neurons, mediated by R neurons.
- Compass neurons exhibit specific visual cue position sensitivities.
- Visually evoked inhibition patterns reorganize with environmental changes, altering the compass coordinate frame.
Conclusions:
- Associative long-term synaptic depression of visually evoked inhibition underlies plasticity.
- This plasticity reconciles self-movement with external cues for a coherent sense of direction.
- Findings support models of associative plasticity combined with attractor dynamics for navigation.
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