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Interaction of eye-, head-, and trunk-bound information in spatial perception and control
1Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltensphysiologi, Seewiesen, Germany. mittelstaedt@mpi-seewiesen.mpg.de
Summary
This study explores spatial perception in mobile animals. It reveals that trunk-based gravity sensing, potentially from kidneys and blood vessels, is crucial for balance and spatial orientation.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Sensory Physiology
- Biophysics
Background:
- Investigates spatial perception and control in mobile organisms with independently controlled sense organs.
- Examines mechanisms of head and trunk rotation control in dragonflies, humans, and pigeons.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review investigations on the perception and control of spatial relations in mobile organisms.
- To identify the sensory inputs responsible for truncal graviception in humans.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of sensory-motor control in dragonflies, humans, and pigeons.
- Experiments using sled centrifuges, paraplegic and neuromectomized subjects.
- Studies involving bilateral nephrectomy and application of air pressure to the lower body and legs.
Main Results:
- Dragonfly head rotation controls trunk rotation via neck reflexes.
- Human head-referenced visual direction invariance is achieved by efference copy feedforward.
- Pigeon trunk tilt responses involve neck receptors (flight) or trunk gravity organs (standing/walking).
- Human truncal graviception is not influenced by leg, skin, or vertebral mechanoreceptors.
- Truncal graviception is affected by afferent inputs from kidneys and tissues supporting major blood vessels.
Conclusions:
- Truncal graviception in humans involves novel afferent inputs, including renal and vascular sources.
- Further somatic graviception sources may involve blood pressure hydrostatics or abdominal viscera inertia.