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Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration

Many animals navigate using a combination of visual landmarks and path integration. In mammalian brains, head direction cells integrate these two streams of information by representing an animal's heading relative to landmarks, yet maintaining their directional tuning in darkness based on self-...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Seelig, Johannes D., Jayaraman, Vivek
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704792/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25971509
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14446
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author Seelig, Johannes D.
Jayaraman, Vivek
author_facet Seelig, Johannes D.
Jayaraman, Vivek
author_sort Seelig, Johannes D.
collection PubMed
description Many animals navigate using a combination of visual landmarks and path integration. In mammalian brains, head direction cells integrate these two streams of information by representing an animal's heading relative to landmarks, yet maintaining their directional tuning in darkness based on self-motion cues. Here we use two-photon calcium imaging in head-fixed flies walking on a ball in a virtual reality arena to demonstrate that landmark-based orientation and angular path integration are combined in the population responses of neurons whose dendrites tile the ellipsoid body — a toroidal structure in the center of the fly brain. The population encodes the fly's azimuth relative to its environment, tracking visual landmarks when available and relying on self-motion cues in darkness. When both visual and self-motion cues are absent, a representation of the animal's orientation is maintained in this network through persistent activity — a potential substrate for short-term memory. Several features of the population dynamics of these neurons and their circular anatomical arrangement are suggestive of ring attractors — network structures proposed to support the function of navigational brain circuits.
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spelling pubmed-47047922016-01-07 Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration Seelig, Johannes D. Jayaraman, Vivek Nature Article Many animals navigate using a combination of visual landmarks and path integration. In mammalian brains, head direction cells integrate these two streams of information by representing an animal's heading relative to landmarks, yet maintaining their directional tuning in darkness based on self-motion cues. Here we use two-photon calcium imaging in head-fixed flies walking on a ball in a virtual reality arena to demonstrate that landmark-based orientation and angular path integration are combined in the population responses of neurons whose dendrites tile the ellipsoid body — a toroidal structure in the center of the fly brain. The population encodes the fly's azimuth relative to its environment, tracking visual landmarks when available and relying on self-motion cues in darkness. When both visual and self-motion cues are absent, a representation of the animal's orientation is maintained in this network through persistent activity — a potential substrate for short-term memory. Several features of the population dynamics of these neurons and their circular anatomical arrangement are suggestive of ring attractors — network structures proposed to support the function of navigational brain circuits. 2015-05-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4704792/ /pubmed/25971509 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14446 Text en http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html#terms Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use:http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html#terms
spellingShingle Article
Seelig, Johannes D.
Jayaraman, Vivek
Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
title Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
title_full Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
title_fullStr Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
title_full_unstemmed Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
title_short Neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
title_sort neural dynamics for landmark orientation and angular path integration
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704792/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25971509
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14446
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