Sun navigation requires compass neurons in<i>Drosophila</i>

Giraldo, Ysabel Milton; Leitch, Katherine J.; Ros, Ivo K.; Warren, Timothy L.; Weir, Peter; Dickinson, Michael H.

doi:10.1101/315176

Cited by 30 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…So-called "compass neurons" in the central complex encode the organism's current heading relative to environmental cues [9][10][11] , analogous to head direction cells in mammals. When compass neurons are genetically silenced, Drosophila can no longer steer toward a remembered spatial goal; remarkably, however, they can still steer directly toward an observable object 12,13 . These results suggest that memory-directed navigation and stimulus-directed navigation are mediated by distinct pathways in Drosophila, just as in mammals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural circuit mechanisms for steering control in walkingDrosophila

Rayshubskiy

2020

Preprint

164

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During navigation, the brain must continuously integrate external guidance cues with internal spatial maps to update steering commands. However, it has been difficult to link spatial maps with motor control. Here we identify descending "steering" neurons in the Drosophila brain that lie two synapses downstream from the brain's heading direction map in the central complex. These steering neurons predict behavioral turns caused by microstimulation of the spatial map. Moreover, these neurons receive "direct" sensory input that bypasses the central complex, and they predict steering evoked by multimodal stimuli. Unilateral activation of these neurons can promote turning, while bilateral silencing interferes with body and leg movements. In short, these neurons combine internal maps with external cues to predict and influence steering. They represent a key link between cognitive maps, which use an abstract coordinate frame, and motor commands, which use a body-centric coordinate frame.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural circuit mechanisms for steering control in walkingDrosophila

Rayshubskiy

2020

Preprint

164

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“…Current research on the Drosophila CX has resolved this question in wonderful detail. First, it was found that a fly's heading direction is correlated with the position of a single 'bump' of electrical activity within the doughnut shaped EB, and that the position of the bump can be locked to a compass direction or to a visual stimulus (Seelig and Jayaraman, 2015;Turner-Evans, D. 2017;Green et al, 2017, Giraldo et al, 2018.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Route following by one-eyed ants suggests a revised model of normal route following

Woodgate

Perl

Collett

2020

Preprint

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SummaryThe prevailing account of visually controlled routes is that an ant learns views as it follows a route, while guided by other path-setting mechanisms. Once a set of route views is memorised, the insect follows the route by turning and moving forwards when the view on the retina matches a stored view. We have engineered a situation in which this account cannot suffice in order to discover whether there may be additional components to the performance of routes. One-eyed wood ants were trained to navigate a short route in the laboratory guided by a single black, vertical bar placed in the blinded visual field. Ants thus had to turn away from the route to see the bar. They often turned to look at or beyond the bar and then turned to face in the direction of the goal. Tests in which the bar was shifted to be more peripheral or more frontal than in training produced a corresponding change in the ants’ paths, demonstrating that they were guided by the bar, presumably obtaining information during scanning turns towards the bar. Examination of the endpoints of turns away from the bar suggest that ants use the bar for guidance by learning how large a turn-back is needed to face the goal. We suggest that the ants’ zigzag paths are an integral part of visually guided route following. In addition, on some runs in which ants did not take a direct path to the goal, they still turned to face and sometimes approach the goal for a short stretch. This off-route goal facing indicates that they store a vector from start to goal and use path integration to track their position relative to the endpoint of the vector.

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“…Recently, there have been a lot of studies analyzing its role in processing visual information. Most of the studies hint towards the importance of the central complex in spatial orientation through different mechanisms: by the use of landmark detection [38,39], or using the so-called 'compass cells' to calculate the position of the sun [40], or the animal's heading, as encoded by head-direction cells [39,41,42].…”

Section: Sensory Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms of vision in the fruit fly

Andres-Bragado

Sprecher

2019

Current Opinion in Insect Science

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Vision is essential to maximize the efficiency of daily tasks such as feeding, avoiding predators or finding mating partners. An advantageous model is Drosophila melanogaster, since it offers tools that allow genetic and neuronal manipulation with high spatial and temporal resolution, which can be combined with behavioral, anatomical and physiological assays. Recent advances have expanded our knowledge on the neural circuitry underlying such important behaviors as color vision (role of reciprocal inhibition to enhance color signal at the level of the ommatidia); motion vision (motion-detection neurones receive both excitatory and inhibitory input), and sensory processing (role of the central complex in spatial navigation, and in orchestrating the information from other senses and the inner state). Research on synergies between pathways is shaping the field.

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Sun navigation requires compass neurons inDrosophila

Cited by 30 publications

References 52 publications

Neural circuit mechanisms for steering control in walkingDrosophila

Neural circuit mechanisms for steering control in walkingDrosophila

Route following by one-eyed ants suggests a revised model of normal route following

Mechanisms of vision in the fruit fly

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