Generation of stable heading representations in diverse visual scenes

Sung Soo Kim (), Ann M. Hermundstad, Sandro Romani, L. F. Abbott and Vivek Jayaraman ()
Additional contact information
Sung Soo Kim: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Ann M. Hermundstad: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Sandro Romani: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
L. F. Abbott: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Vivek Jayaraman: Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Nature, 2019, vol. 576, issue 7785, 126-131

Abstract: Abstract Many animals rely on an internal heading representation when navigating in varied environments1–10. How this representation is linked to the sensory cues that define different surroundings is unclear. In the fly brain, heading is represented by ‘compass’ neurons that innervate a ring-shaped structure known as the ellipsoid body3,11,12. Each compass neuron receives inputs from ‘ring’ neurons that are selective for particular visual features13–16; this combination provides an ideal substrate for the extraction of directional information from a visual scene. Here we combine two-photon calcium imaging and optogenetics in tethered flying flies with circuit modelling, and show how the correlated activity of compass and visual neurons drives plasticity17–22, which flexibly transforms two-dimensional visual cues into a stable heading representation. We also describe how this plasticity enables the fly to convert a partial heading representation, established from orienting within part of a novel setting, into a complete heading representation. Our results provide mechanistic insight into the memory-related computations that are essential for flexible navigation in varied surroundings.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1767-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:576:y:2019:i:7785:d:10.1038_s41586-019-1767-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1767-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().