A unifying model to predict multiple object orienting behaviors in tethered flies

Abstract

Individual visual processing circuits for Drosophila locomotor control have been studied in detail, but contributions of specific pathways to multiple behaviors remain unclear. To address how both flexible and stereotyped visual object response behaviors potentially share neural circuit components, we investigated models of asymmetric motion responses. Such models have predicted that object fixation without explicit neural encoding of position is possible. Here we investigated what neural circuits and behaviors are consistent with such models. In behavioral experiments on tethered flying flies, we found close correspondence between T4/T5-neuron dependent turning responses to objects and model output for high frequency perturbations. Furthermore, we found that the model predicts key results from several published accounts of stereotyped object tracking. The concurrence of experiment and theory suggests a neural substrate and algorithmic basis for stereotyped object tracking and informs future studies of flexible visual behaviors and their neural bases.