Attention‐like processes underlying optomotor performance in a Drosophila choice maze

Abstract

The authors present a novel paradigm for studying visual responses in Drosophila. An eight‐level choice maze was found to reliably segregate fly populations according to their responses to moving stripes displayed on a computer screen. Visual responsiveness was robust in wild‐type flies, and performance depended on salience effects such as stimulus color and speed. Analysis of individual fly choices in the maze revealed that stereotypy, or choice persistence, contributed significantly to a strain's performance. On the basis of these observations, the authors bred wild‐type flies for divergent visual phenotypes by selecting individual flies displaying extreme stereotypy. Selected flies alternated less often in the sequential choice maze than unselected flies, showing that stereotypy could evolve across generations. The authors found that selection for increased stereotypy impaired flies' responsiveness to competing stimuli in tests for attention‐like behavior in the maze. Visual selective attention was further investigated by electrophysiology, and it was found that increased stereotypy also impaired responsiveness to competing stimuli at the level of brain activity. Combined results present a comprehensive approach to studying visual responses in Drosophila, and show that behavioral performance involves attention‐like processes that are variable among individuals and thus sensitive to artificial selection. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 67: 129–145, 2007.

Attentional Switching in Humans and Flies: Rivalry in Large and Miniature Brains

“…This suggested the presence of organismic bias in the direction of stereotypy: if flies turned right, they were more likely to turn right again at the following choice point, almost as if a left-right decision persisted across multiple choices, until an internally generated switch occurred. This observation of choice stereotypy was replicated several decades later in the eight-point visual choice maze (Van Swinderen and Flores, 2007), which was discussed in the previous section.…”

“…Although both of these phenotypes (random 20–30 Hz dynamics in the brain and torque oscillations) are consistent with a perceptual rivalry defect, these phenotypes were not used to originally identify radish as a potential rivalry mutant. Rather, a high-throughput optomotor maze paradigm was used (Van Swinderen, 2007a; Van Swinderen and Flores, 2007). In this paradigm, populations of flies walk through eight consecutive choice points while they are exposed to moving gratings displayed on a computer monitor.…”

The transcription factor SoxD controls neuronal guidance in the Drosophila visual system

“…For this we took advantage of an established paradigm to evaluate visual motion detection response, in which a population of flies walk through an eight-point choice maze with a moving visual stimulus (green stripes moving to the right, see Fig. 5A ) 35 , 36 . At each choice point of the maze, the flies turn left or right, according to the stimulus direction, to end in one of nine collection tubes at the other end of the maze.…”

“…For evaluating optomotor response we generated a transparent eight-choice maze based on the description from Van Swinderen et al . 35 and using a 3D printing service. In a dark room, the maze was attached to a 23-inche screen, in which one cm green and black stripes were constantly moving to the right with a frequency of 3 Hz.…”

Numerical Cognition in Bees and Other Insects

“…Fortunately, these are variables that, in social insects, can be manipulated with some effort, so as to produce better-controlled experimental protocols. The effects of attention-like processes, as have been seen in honeybees (Giurfa, 2004) and in Drosophila (Van Swinderen and Flores, 2007), also have the potential to indicate more precisely the mechanism by which the former group of insects is able to discriminate between small numbers. Is attention more important in maze studies, such as that of Gross et al (2009), where the bees are allowed to examine the visual stimuli for an extended period of time, before making a decision?…”