|
| |
|
|
|
|
||||
| Home Help Feedback Subscriptions Archive Search Table of Contents | ||||
First published online August 3, 2006
Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 3170-3182 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
doi: 10.1242/jeb.02369
Visual stimulation of saccades in magnetically tethered Drosophila
Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
* Author for correspondence (e-mail: jbender{at}caltech.edu)
Accepted 5 June 2006
Flying fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, perform `body saccades', in which they change heading by about 90° in roughly 70 ms. In free flight, visual expansion can evoke saccades, and saccade-like turns are triggered by similar stimuli in tethered flies. However, because the fictive turns in rigidly tethered flies follow a much longer time course, the extent to which these two behaviors share a common neural basis is unknown. A key difference between tethered and free flight conditions is the presence of additional sensory cues in the latter, which might serve to modify the time course of the saccade motor program. To study the role of sensory feedback in saccades, we have developed a new preparation in which a fly is tethered to a fine steel pin that is aligned within a vertically oriented magnetic field, allowing it to rotate freely around its yaw axis. In this experimental paradigm, flies perform rapid turns averaging 35° in 80 ms, similar to the kinematics of free flight saccades. Our results indicate that tethered and free flight saccades share a common neural basis, but that the lack of appropriate feedback signals distorts the behavior performed by rigidly fixed flies. Using our new paradigm, we also investigated the features of visual stimuli that elicit saccades. Our data suggest that saccades are triggered when expanding objects reach a critical threshold size, but that their timing depends little on the precise time course of expansion. These results are consistent with expansion detection circuits studied in other insects, but do not exclude other models based on the integration of local movement detectors.
Key words: Drosophila, saccade, vision
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati 
Twitter What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  B. Cheng, S. N. Fry, Q. Huang, and X. Deng Aerodynamic damping during rapid flight maneuvers in the fruit fly Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., February 15, 2010; 213(4): 602 - 612. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 H. Fotowat, A. Fayyazuddin, H. J. Bellen, and F. Gabbiani A Novel Neuronal Pathway for Visually Guided Escape in Drosophila melanogaster J Neurophysiol, August 1, 2009; 102(2): 875 - 885. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
D. M. Chow and M. A. Frye Context-dependent olfactory enhancement of optomotor flight control in Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., August 1, 2008; 211(15): 2478 - 2485. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
M. Mronz and F.-O. Lehmann The free-flight response of Drosophila to motion of the visual environment J. Exp. Biol., July 1, 2008; 211(13): 2026 - 2045. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
T. Hesselberg and F.-O. Lehmann Turning behaviour depends on frictional damping in the fruit fly Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., December 15, 2007; 210(24): 4319 - 4334. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S. A. Budick, M. B. Reiser, and M. H. Dickinson The role of visual and mechanosensory cues in structuring forward flight in Drosophila melanogaster J. Exp. Biol., December 1, 2007; 210(23): 4092 - 4103. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
J. A. Bender and M. H. Dickinson A comparison of visual and haltere-mediated feedback in the control of body saccades in Drosophila melanogaster J. Exp. Biol., December 1, 2006; 209(23): 4597 - 4606. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
