A Descending Neuron Correlated with the Rapid Steering Maneuvers of Flying Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: To navigate through the world, animals must stabilize their path against disturbances and change direction to avoid obstacles and to search for resources [1, 2]. Locomotion is thus guided by sensory cues but also depends on intrinsic processes, such as motivation and physiological state. Flies, for example, turn with the direction of large-field rotatory motion, an optomotor reflex that is thought to help them fly straight [3-5]. Occasionally, however, they execute fast turns, called body saccades, either spontaneously or in response to patterns of visual motion such as expansion [6-8]. These turns can be measured in tethered flying Drosophila [3, 4, 9], which facilitates the study of underlying neural mechanisms. Whereas there is evidence for an efference copy input to visual interneurons

SUBMITTER: Schnell B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6309624 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature