Abstract
Dendritic integration is a fundamental element of neuronal information processing. So far, few studies have provided a detailed spatial picture of this process, describing the properties of local dendritic activity and its subcellular organization. Here, we used 2-photon calcium imaging in optic flow processing neurons of the fly Calliphora vicina to determine the preferred location and direction of local motion cues for small branchlets throughout the entire dendrite. We found a pronounced retinotopic mapping on both the subcellular and the cell population level. In addition, dendritic branchlets residing in different layers of the neuropil were tuned to distinct directions of motion. Summing the local receptive fields of all dendritic branchlets reproduced the characteristic properties of these neurons’ axonal output receptive fields. Our results corroborate the notion that the dendritic morphology of vertical system cells allows them to selectively collect local motion inputs with particular directional preferences from a spatially organized input repertoire, thus forming filters that match global patterns of optic flow. Furthermore, we suggest that the facet arrangement across the fly’s eye shapes the subcellular direction tuning to local motion stimuli. These data illustrate a highly structured circuit organization as an efficient way to hard-wire a complex sensory task.
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Acknowledgments
The project has received support from the Max Planck Society and a GIF Grant to Idan Segev and Alexander Borst. The authors declare no competing financial interests. The authors thank Renate Gleich for fly care and anatomical reconstruction of the VS cell set shown in Fig. 3a, Ursula Weber for the Richardson’s staining of these cells, and Matthew Maisak, Fabrizio Gabbiani and Alexander Arenz for critically reading the manuscript. The antibody 4F3 anti-discs large-s was developed by Corey Goodman and obtained from the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank developed under the auspices of the NICHD and maintained by The University of Iowa, Department of Biology, Iowa City, IA 52242.
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Hopp, E., Borst, A. & Haag, J. Subcellular mapping of dendritic activity in optic flow processing neurons. J Comp Physiol A 200, 359–370 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-014-0893-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-014-0893-3