Arthropod´s visual columnar neurons account for behavioral adaptability to repeated object motion.

MARTÍN BERÓN DE ASTRADA

Huerta Grande, Cordoba

Simposio; Satelite: Neuroetología y Memoria. Congreso Argentino de Neurociencias, 2013; 2013

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

Object motion detection provides essential cues for a wide variety of animal behaviors such as mate, prey, or predator detection. In insects and decapod crustaceans, visual codification of object motion is associated to visual processing in the third retinotopic optic neuropil, the lobula. In all the studied species (hoverflies, locusts, crayfishes and crabs) the repetitive presentation of object motion stimuli induces a retinotopic specific reduction in the response of lobula tangential neurons that would account for the reduction in the animal response to the visual stimulation. Whether the circuitry plasticity observed at the lobula tangential neurons first arises at these neurons themselves or as a consequence of plastic changes occurring in their presynaptic columnar neurons has been an elusive issue. Thus, we developed a simply methodology to directly address this issue recording the activity of columnar elements with calcium optical recordings. We found that the calcium response of the columnar neurons rapidly declines to repetitive motion stimulus presentations. In correspondence with animal behavior and with the activity of lobula tangential neurons, the response of the presynaptic columnar elements completely recovers after fifteen minutes and the reduction in response is retinotopic specific. Our results show that visually guided behaviors can be determined by neural plasticity that occurs surprisingly early in the arthropod visual pathway.