FicTrac: A visual method for tracking spherical motion and generating fictive animal paths

Moore, Richard J. D.; Taylor, Gavin J.; Paulk, Angelique C.; Pearson, Thomas W. J.; Swinderen, Bruno van; Srinivasan, Mandyam V.

doi:10.1016/j.jneumeth.2014.01.010

Cited by 118 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Closed-loop control was achieved by filming the ball's movement to control the angular position of the visual object ( Fig. 1B; Moore et al, 2014). Consistent with previous tethered paradigms, we found that flies tended to bring the bar to the front, a behavior called fixation ( Fig.…”

Section: Walking Flies Fixate On Dark Vertical Bars In Closed Loopsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Neural responses were measured by frequency tagging, a method to track flickering stimuli in brain activity. Frequency tagging has been extensively used to understand aspects of attention and cognition in humans and other vertebrates, usually through electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings (Vialatte et al, 2010;Norcia et al, 2015). However, it is only recently that frequency tagging has been established for insects such as the honeybee and fruit flies by recording LFP responses in the brain (van Swinderen, 2012;Paulk et al, 2013Paulk et al, , 2014.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1C). These corrective responses were evident when we examined the fictive path the flies would have taken if they were walking on a flat twodimensional surface, as measured using FicTrac (see Materials and Methods; Moore et al, 2014): flies turned left or right, continuously adjusting their behavior to face the dark bar once again (Fig. 1E).…”

Section: Walking Flies Fixate On Dark Vertical Bars In Closed Loopmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Tethered flies were suspended above an airsupported ball surrounded by either a diamond-shaped light emitting diode (LED) arena ( Fig. 1; Paulk et al, 2013;Moore et al, 2014) or a round multipaneled LED arena (Reiser and Dickinson, 2008). The airsupported ball was a ϳ37 mg Styrofoam ball (radius 7.5 mm; PioneerCraft) painted with a black and red pattern using a Sharpie pen.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Closed-Loop Behavioral Control Increases Coherence in the Fly Brain

Paulk

Kirszenblat

Zhou

et al. 2015

Journal of Neuroscience

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A crucial function of the brain is to be able to distinguish whether or not changes in the environment are caused by one's own actions. Even the smallest brains appear to be capable of making this distinction, as has been shown by closed-loop behavioral experiments in flies controlling visual stimuli in virtual reality paradigms. We questioned whether activity in the fruit fly brain is different during such closed-loop behavior, compared with passive viewing of a stimulus. To address this question, we used a procedure to record local field potential (LFP) activity across the fly brain while flies were controlling a virtual object through their movement on an air-supported ball. The virtual object was flickered at a precise frequency (7 Hz), creating a frequency tag that allowed us to track brain responses to the object while animals were behaving. Following experiments under closed-loop control, we replayed the same stimulus to the fly in open loop, such that it could no longer control the stimulus. We found identical receptive fields and similar strength of frequency tags across the brain for the virtual object under closed loop and replay. However, when comparing central versus peripheral brain regions, we found that brain responses were differentially modulated depending on whether flies were in control or not. Additionally, coherence of LFP activity in the brain increased when flies were in control, compared with replay, even if motor behavior was similar. This suggests that processes associated with closed-loop control promote temporal coordination in the insect brain.

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Section: Walking Flies Fixate On Dark Vertical Bars In Closed Loopsupporting

confidence: 86%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Walking Flies Fixate On Dark Vertical Bars In Closed Loopmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Closed-Loop Behavioral Control Increases Coherence in the Fly Brain

Paulk

Kirszenblat

Zhou

et al. 2015

Journal of Neuroscience

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“…Most recently, the so-called FicTrac method has been introduced (Moore et al, 2014). The motion of an air-cushioned sphere is registered by a camera monitoring the movement of a locally unique contrast pattern applied to the sphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naturalistic path integration of Cataglyphis desert ants on an air-cushioned lightweight spherical treadmill

Dahmen

Wahl

Pfeffer

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Air-cushioned spheres are widely used as treadmills to study behavioural and neurophysiological questions in numerous species. We describe an improved spherical treadmill design that reliably registers the path and walking behaviour of an animal walking on top of the sphere. The simple and robust set-up consists of a very light hollowed styrofoam ball supported by an air stream in a hollow half sphere and can be used indoors and outdoors. Two optical mouse sensors provided with lenses of 4.6 mm focal length detect the motion of the sphere with a temporal resolution of more than 200 frames sand a spatial resolution of less than 0.2 mm. The treadmill can be used in an open-or closed-loop configuration with respect to yaw of the animal. The tethering allows animals to freely adjust their body posture and in the closed-loop configuration to quickly rotate around their yaw axis with their own moment of inertia. In this account, we present the first evidence of naturalistic homing navigation on a spherical treadmill for two species of Cataglyphis desert ants. We were able to evaluate with good precision the walking speed and angular orientation at any time. During homing the ants showed a significant difference in walking speed between the approach and search phases; moreover, they slowed down significantly as soon as they reached zero vector state, the fictive nest position.

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Drosophila as a Model to Explore Individuality

Tsai

Chou

2022

Neuromethods

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FicTrac: A visual method for tracking spherical motion and generating fictive animal paths

Cited by 118 publications

References 35 publications

Closed-Loop Behavioral Control Increases Coherence in the Fly Brain

Closed-Loop Behavioral Control Increases Coherence in the Fly Brain

Naturalistic path integration of Cataglyphis desert ants on an air-cushioned lightweight spherical treadmill

Drosophila as a Model to Explore Individuality

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