A visual pathway for skylight polarization processing in Drosophila
- University of California, Los Angeles, United States
Abstract
Many insects use patterns of polarized light in the sky to orient and navigate. Here we functionally characterize neural circuitry in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, that conveys polarized light signals from the eye to the central complex, a brain region essential for the fly's sense of direction. Neurons tuned to the angle of polarization of ultraviolet light are found throughout the anterior visual pathway, connecting the optic lobes with the central complex via the anterior optic tubercle and bulb, in a homologous organization to the 'sky compass' pathways described in other insects. We detail how a consistent, map-like organization of neural tunings in the peripheral visual system is transformed into a reduced representation suited to flexible processing in the central brain. This study identifies computational motifs of the transformation, enabling mechanistic comparisons of multisensory integration and central processing for navigation in the brains of insects.
Data availability
The datasets and analysis code generated during this study are available at the Open Science Framework. doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/3tsd6
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Data and analysis code from: A visual pathway for skylight polarization processing in <i>Drosophila</i>Open Science Framework, doi:10.17605/osf.io/3tsd6.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01-NS096290)
- Volker Hartenstein
National Institutes of Health (R01-EY026031)
- Mark A Frye
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2021, Hardcastle et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A visual pathway for skylight polarization processing in Drosophila
eLife 10:e63225.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.63225
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