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Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes

Aerial predators, such as the dragonfly, determine the position and movement of their prey even when both are moving through complex, natural scenes. This task is likely supported by a group of neurons in the optic lobe which respond to moving targets that subtend less than a few degrees. These Smal...

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Autores principales: Evans, Bernard John Essex, O’Carroll, David Charles, Fabian, Joseph Mahandas, Wiederman, Steven D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9017788/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35450210
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2022.857071
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author Evans, Bernard John Essex
O’Carroll, David Charles
Fabian, Joseph Mahandas
Wiederman, Steven D.
author_facet Evans, Bernard John Essex
O’Carroll, David Charles
Fabian, Joseph Mahandas
Wiederman, Steven D.
author_sort Evans, Bernard John Essex
collection PubMed
description Aerial predators, such as the dragonfly, determine the position and movement of their prey even when both are moving through complex, natural scenes. This task is likely supported by a group of neurons in the optic lobe which respond to moving targets that subtend less than a few degrees. These Small Target Motion Detector (STMD) neurons are tuned to both target size and velocity, whilst also exhibiting facilitated responses to targets traveling along continuous trajectories. When presented with a pair of targets, some STMDs generate spiking activity that represent a competitive selection of one target, as if the alternative does not exist (i.e., selective attention). Here, we describe intracellular responses of CSTMD1 (an identified STMD) to the visual presentation of targets embedded within cluttered, natural scenes. We examine CSTMD1 response changes to target contrast, as well as a range of target and background velocities. We find that background motion affects CSTMD1 responses via the competitive selection between features within the natural scene. Here, robust discrimination of our artificially embedded “target” is limited to scenarios when its velocity is matched to, or greater than, the background velocity. Additionally, the background’s direction of motion affects discriminability, though not in the manner observed in STMDs of other flying insects. Our results highlight that CSTMD1’s competitive responses are to those features best matched to the neuron’s underlying spatiotemporal tuning, whether from the embedded target or other features in the background clutter. In many scenarios, CSTMD1 responds robustly to targets moving through cluttered scenes. However, whether this neuronal system could underlie the task of competitively selecting slow moving prey against fast-moving backgrounds remains an open question.
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spelling pubmed-90177882022-04-20 Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes Evans, Bernard John Essex O’Carroll, David Charles Fabian, Joseph Mahandas Wiederman, Steven D. Front Cell Neurosci Cellular Neuroscience Aerial predators, such as the dragonfly, determine the position and movement of their prey even when both are moving through complex, natural scenes. This task is likely supported by a group of neurons in the optic lobe which respond to moving targets that subtend less than a few degrees. These Small Target Motion Detector (STMD) neurons are tuned to both target size and velocity, whilst also exhibiting facilitated responses to targets traveling along continuous trajectories. When presented with a pair of targets, some STMDs generate spiking activity that represent a competitive selection of one target, as if the alternative does not exist (i.e., selective attention). Here, we describe intracellular responses of CSTMD1 (an identified STMD) to the visual presentation of targets embedded within cluttered, natural scenes. We examine CSTMD1 response changes to target contrast, as well as a range of target and background velocities. We find that background motion affects CSTMD1 responses via the competitive selection between features within the natural scene. Here, robust discrimination of our artificially embedded “target” is limited to scenarios when its velocity is matched to, or greater than, the background velocity. Additionally, the background’s direction of motion affects discriminability, though not in the manner observed in STMDs of other flying insects. Our results highlight that CSTMD1’s competitive responses are to those features best matched to the neuron’s underlying spatiotemporal tuning, whether from the embedded target or other features in the background clutter. In many scenarios, CSTMD1 responds robustly to targets moving through cluttered scenes. However, whether this neuronal system could underlie the task of competitively selecting slow moving prey against fast-moving backgrounds remains an open question. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-04-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9017788/ /pubmed/35450210 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2022.857071 Text en Copyright © 2022 Evans, O’Carroll, Fabian and Wiederman. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Cellular Neuroscience
Evans, Bernard John Essex
O’Carroll, David Charles
Fabian, Joseph Mahandas
Wiederman, Steven D.
Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes
title Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes
title_full Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes
title_fullStr Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes
title_full_unstemmed Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes
title_short Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes
title_sort dragonfly neurons selectively attend to targets within natural scenes
topic Cellular Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9017788/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35450210
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2022.857071
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