2025/04/26 by Matthew F. Collie, Chennan Jin, Victoria Rockwell +5 · 1 voice · 3 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Neuroscience · #Artificial intelligence #Computer science #Control (management) #Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research #Object (grammar) #Retinal Development and Disorders #Visual perception and processing mechanisms
paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/2025.04.23.650240
published in bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
openalex publication_date 2025/04/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Summary To pursue a moving visual object, the brain must generate motor commands that continuously steer the object to the center of the visual field via feedback. The gain of this control loop is flexible, yet the biological mechanisms underlying such adaptive control are not well-understood. Here we show that adaptive control in the Drosophila pursuit system involves two parallel pathways. One detects objects in the periphery and steers them toward the center of the visual field. The other detects objects near the center of the visual field and steers them to the visual midline. This latter pathway is flexible: gain increases when the object is moving away from the midline and when the pursuer is running fast. This latter pathway is also preferentially recruited when the fly is aroused, and suppressing it decreases pursuit performance. Our findings demonstrate how adaptive control can emerge from parallel pathways with specialized properties.