Neural mechanism for reafference rejection during voluntary saccades
Abstract
This proposal seeks to identify the neural circuitry underlying how a motor command suppresses corrective visual reflexes during visual tracking in drosophila. Tasking to achieve the objective of this proposal will involve optogenetics, quantitative analysis of behavior in virtual reality, and multi-photon imaging to reveal how visual stability reflexes are modified by visuo-motor commands during flight in the fruit fly. Using a virtual reality flight simulator, the proposer will test the hypothesis that the visual system of flies rejects self-generated visual information via neural inhibition. The proposer will take advantage of the molecular genetic techniques available in Drosophila in order to manipulate neural circuits, and study in-vivo calcium dynamics from identified neural circuitry in flying flies. The experimental goal is to record activity of visual processing intemeurons during voluntary saccades to identify visual processes that are inhibited during saccades by the process of feedforward reafference rejection. Individual flies are tethered onto a custom microscope stage within a virtual-reality arena identical to those used in behavioral experiments that enables multi-photon imaging of cellular circuits while flies can freely beat their wings. Visual stimuli will be displayed that evokes flight steering saccades. Wing movements of flies are tracked in real-time while simultaneously recording the activity of candidate interneurons using 2-photon excitation calcium imaging. Using a video system to track the beating wings, proposer will compare the Ca2+ activity of identified visual interneurons before, during, and after voluntary saccades.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 12, 2017
- Source ID
- W911NF1510558
Entities
People
- Mark . Frye
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of California, Los Angeles