Figure 9. Automatic receptive field search through the stepper motor activity-dependent stimulation.

The figure shows the simultaneous recording of the stepper motor movement (top row), the wing motor nerve (middle row) and the real time burst detection on the wing nerve (bottom row). The motor is automatically sweeping through a range of angles. The software monitors the occurrence of stereotyped bursts in the activity of the wing nerve. After a burst detection or when a defined maximum angle is reached (horizontal dotted lines), the motor changes direction. Vertical dashed lines indicate a region where a strong response of wing motoneurons was observed in response to a stimulation around −21° (green horizontal arrow).