Introducing the brain: fly vision and maneuvers (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 21, 2021, 01:23 (1069 days ago) @ David Turell

Direct neuron connections are found:

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-brains-possibly-universal-principles.html

"Flies predict changes in their visual environment in order to execute evasive maneuvers, according to new research from the University of Chicago. This reliance on predictive information to guide behavior suggests that prediction may be a general feature of animal nervous systems in supporting quick behavioral changes.

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"'For a fly, everything is trying to eat you, and you want to avoid being eaten. However, the fly's environment is rapidly changing, and the neurons they have are laggy. We wanted to study how flies were able to execute quick evasive behaviors to avoid being eaten by predators when ongoing feedback from their sensory systems hasn't been processed."

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"Using detailed diagrams of the connectivity between neurons in the fly visual system, the researchers made a simulation of the visual response as they fed in the previously recorded behavioral data set. "We compared what an optimal prediction would look like and what the fly's prediction looks like, and then we broke open the simulation to try to identify which parts were the most important for making these predictions," Palmer said.

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"The authors identified structures called axonal gap junctions, which are physical channels connecting the neurons, that mediate an optimal form of this information bottleneck and are critical for both filtering out the unnecessary information and preserving the necessary information to make predictions.

"The investigators further found that a subpopulation of these vertical motion sensory neurons that are involved in making predictions is unique in that it is also directly connected to the fly's flight steering neurons. This suggests that there is direct input from the neurons responsible for making predictions about the fly's environment to neurons that control the fly's behavior. This direct connection might explain how predictions that the fly is making are able to quickly influence its behavior.

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"'Cracking open the black box of how the fly does this has revealed what we think are universal design principles that the nervous systems of other animals probably also use," Palmer said. "We're interested in searching for another example of prediction-guiding behavior in another animal and asking if what we found in the fly really does apply broadly across species.'"

Comment: As the author's show, this is a highly designed system to help the fly hunt and survive. Not by chance.