An optimal population code for global motion estimation in local direction-selective cells

AbstractNervous systems allocate computational resources to match stimulus statistics. However, the physical information that needs to be processed depends on the animal’s own behavior. For example, visual motion patterns induced by self-motion provide essential information for navigation. How behavioral constraints affect neural processing is not known. Here we show that, at the population level, local direction-selective T4/T5 neurons in Drosophila represent optic flow fields generated by self-motion, reminiscent to a population code in retinal ganglion cells in vertebrates. Whereas in vertebrates four different cell types encode different optic flow fields, the four uniformly tuned T4/T5…

Author response: ON selectivity in the Drosophila visual system is a multisynaptic process involving both glutamatergic and GABAergic inhibition

(A,B) In vivo GCaMP6f signals recorded in layers M1, M5 and M9/10 of Mi1 (A) and Tm3 (B) neurons, before (blue, green) and after (gray, red) application of 0 (sham), 1, 5 or 100 µM PTX. (C,D) Bar plot showing the quantification of the ON step in (A,B). Sample sizes: sham, n = 5 (89); 1 µM, n = 5 (68); 5 µM, n = 5 (64); 100 µM, n = 5 (89). All traces show mean ± SEM. All sample sizes are given as number of flies (number of cells). *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001, tested with a one-way ANOVA and a post-hoc unpaired t-test with Bonferroni-Holm correction for multiple comparisons.

Sensory systems sequentially extract increasingly complex features. ON and OFF pathways, for example, encode increases or decreases of a stimulus from a common input. This ON/OFF pathway split is thought to occur at individual synaptic connections through a sign-inverting synapse in one of the pathways. Here, we show that ON selectivity is a multisynaptic process in the Drosophila visual system. A pharmacogenetics approach demonstrates that both glutamatergic inhibition through GluClα and GABAergic inhibition through Rdl mediate ON responses. Although neurons postsynaptic to the glutamatergic ON pathway input L1 lose all responses in GluClα mutants, they are resistant to a cell-type-specifi…