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. 2023 Sep 26;12:e86076. doi: 10.7554/eLife.86076

Figure 6. Maturation of optomotor response in early adulthood.

(a) Adult flies at various ages post eclosion were presented with 5 s, high-contrast, rotating sinusoidal gratings as in Figure 2b. As the flies aged from 1 day post eclosion (dpe) to 2, 4, and 8 dpe, the initial anti-directional turning response transitioned into syn-directional turning. Dark-rearing flies at 2 dpe reduced this maturation effect. Shaded patches represent ±1 SEM. N=5–14 flies. (b) The last 1.5 s of the mean turning velocity of each fly was averaged, and the population response was plotted. (c) As in (a) but in the TRC lab, using 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 dpe, with dark rearing for 4 dpe. With maturation, the syn-directional turning became less transient. N=9–15 flies. (d) As in (b) but for data in (c).

Figure 6.

Figure 6—figure supplement 1. D. yakuba lacks plasticity of anti-directional responses in adulthood that is observed D. melanogaster.

Figure 6—figure supplement 1.

(a) Adult yakuba flies at various ages post eclosion were presented with 5 s, high-contrast, rotating sinusoidal gratings as in Figure 6. Data was acquired in the TRC lab. Anti-directional responses stayed consistent from 0.5 days post eclosion (dpe) to 1, 2, and 4 dpe, although the initial optomotor response became smaller as the flies aged. Shaded patches represent ±1 SEM. N=7–11 flies. (b) The last 1.5 s of the mean turning velocity of each fly was averaged, and the population response was plotted.
Figure 6—figure supplement 2. Schematic of potential subtractive circuit properties consistent with data presented in this study.

Figure 6—figure supplement 2.

Schematic top view of the head of a fly, showing one eye on each side. A counterclockwise stimulus would tend to drive counterclockwise turning behavior on short timescales. In this schematic, this is driven by front-to-back motion detectors on the left eye and back-to-front motion detectors on the right eye (in black, as opposed to gray detectors, which are not active). The influences from the two eyes sum to contribute to counterclockwise turning. One putative anti-directional turning mechanism is shown in blue: under high-contrast and high-luminance conditions, on long timescales, the regressive motion detectors on the right eye influence turning with the opposite sign, with an influence stronger than the progressive motion detectors on the left eye. Our imaging data show that this reversal is not occurring in T4, T5, horizontal system (HS), or CH neurons (Figure 5), so must be somewhere parallel to or downstream of those neurons.