Biomedical subjects

David C O'Carroll

Publications and source records attributed to David C O'Carroll.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Small object detection neurons in female hoverflies.

While predators such as dragonflies are dependent on visual detection of moving prey, social interactions make conspecific detection equally important for many non-predatory insects. Specialized 'acute zones' associated with target detection have evolved in several insect groups and are a prominent male-specific feature in many dipteran flies. The physiology of target selective neurons associated with these specialized eye regions has previously been described only from male flies. We show here that female hoverflies (Eristalis tenax) have several classes of neurons within the third optic ganglion (lobula) capable of detecting moving objects smaller than 1 degrees . These neurons have frontal receptive fields covering a large part of the ipsilateral world and are tuned to a broad range of target speeds and sizes. This could make them suitable for detecting targets under a range of natural conditions such as required during predator avoidance or conspecific interactions.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2006

Insect detection of small targets moving in visual clutter.

Detection of targets that move within visual clutter is a common task for animals searching for prey or conspecifics, a task made even more difficult when a moving pursuer needs to analyze targets against the motion of background texture (clutter). Despite the limited optical acuity of the compound eye of insects, this challenging task seems to have been solved by their tiny visual system. Here we describe neurons found in the male hoverfly, Eristalis tenax, that respond selectively to small moving targets. Although many of these target neurons are inhibited by the motion of a background pattern, others respond to target motion within the receptive field under a surprisingly large range of background motion stimuli. Some neurons respond whether or not there is a speed differential between target and background. Analysis of responses to very small targets (smaller than the size of the visual field of single photoreceptors) or those targets with reduced contrast shows that these neurons have extraordinarily high contrast sensitivity. Our data suggest that rejection of background motion may result from extreme selectivity for small targets contrasting against local patches of the background, combined with this high sensitivity, such that background patterns rarely contain features that satisfactorily drive the neuron.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

A "bright zone" in male hoverfly (Eristalis tenax) eyes and associated faster motion detection and increased contrast sensitivity.

Eyes of the hoverfly Eristalis tenax are sexually dimorphic such that males have a fronto-dorsal region of large facets. In contrast to other large flies in which large facets are associated with a decreased interommatidial angle to form a dorsal "acute zone" of increased spatial resolution, we show that a dorsal region of large facets in males appears to form a "bright zone" of increased light capture without substantially increased spatial resolution. Theoretically, more light allows for increased performance in tasks such as motion detection. To determine the effect of the bright zone on motion detection, local properties of wide field motion detecting neurons were investigated using localized sinusoidal gratings. The pattern of local preferred directions of one class of these cells, the HS cells, in Eristalis is similar to that reported for the blowfly Calliphora. The bright zone seems to contribute to local contrast sensitivity; high contrast sensitivity exists in portions of the receptive field served by large diameter facet lenses of males and is not observed in females. Finally, temporal frequency tuning is also significantly faster in this frontal portion of the world, particularly in males, where it overcompensates for the higher spatial-frequency tuning and shifts the predicted local velocity optimum to higher speeds. These results indicate that increased retinal illuminance due to the bright zone of males is used to enhance contrast sensitivity and speed motion detector responses. Additionally, local neural properties vary across the visual world in a way not expected if HS cells serve purely as matched filters to measure yaw-induced visual motion.

Animals↗