RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Discrimination of Features in Natural Scenes by a Dragonfly Neuron
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 7141
OP 7144
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0970-11.2011
VO 31
IS 19
A1 Wiederman, Steven D.
A1 O'Carroll, David C.
YR 2011
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/19/7141.abstract
AB Flying insects engage in spectacular high-speed pursuit of targets, requiring visual discrimination of moving objects against cluttered backgrounds. As a first step toward understanding the neural basis for this complex task, we used computational modeling of insect small target motion detector (STMD) neurons to predict responses to features within natural scenes and then compared this with responses recorded from an identified STMD neuron in the dragonfly brain (Hemicordulia tau). A surprising model prediction confirmed by our electrophysiological recordings is that even heavily cluttered scenes contain very few features that excite these neurons, due largely to their exquisite tuning for small features. We also show that very subtle manipulations of the image cause dramatic changes in the response of this neuron, because of the complex inhibitory and facilitatory interactions within the receptive field.