Gaze Control in Drosophila During Pursuit and Navigation

Vision is essential for goal-directed locomotion, yet self-generated optic flow during movement through space blurs images, limiting high-acuity vision. One solution that mitigates this challenge for the visual system is aligning specialized regions of the eyes-acute zones or foveae-with optic flow minima, such as the focus of expansion during translation, while keeping periods of rotational optic flow as short as possible. Gaze stability thus arises from coordinated interactions between visual motion processing and precisely timed movements across the body. Although the specific motor programs underlying gaze stabilization vary with behavioral context, they exhibit striking similarities across insect and vertebrate species. Here, we highlight the advantages of studying gaze stabilization in Drosophila melanogaster. The fly's compact central nervous system and its exceptionally well-characterized early visual system enable efforts to link neural signals at the visual periphery with long-range sensorimotor loops that support the adaptive control of gaze stability.