Paper

New modular assays for the quantitative study of skylight navigation in flying flies

Wernet, Mathias F, Mathejczyk, Thomas F

2019

Overview

The quantitative study of behavioral responses provides crucial information about how neural circuits process visual information, thereby revealing the computations responsible for shaping the animal's perception of the outside world. Over the last decade, insects have served as particularly powerful model systems, either when walking on air suspended balls (spherical treadmill), or when flying while glued to a needle (virtual flight arena). The use of virtual flight arenas is complicated by the fact that an effective experimental setup needs to combine a rather complex set of custom-built mechanical, electronic, and software components. Assembling such an apparatus amounts to a major challenge when working in an environment without the support of a machine shop. Here we present detailed instructions for the assembly of virtual flight arenas optimized for Drosophila skylight navigation, which can easily be modified towards other uses. This system consists entirely of off-the-shelf parts and 3D-printed components, combining a modular flight arena designed to reduce visual artifacts, swappable high-power LED light sources, polarization filters on a computer-controlled rotating filter wheel, all placed within a temperature and humidity controlled environment. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the usefulness of these assays for the study of skylight navigation in flies. Footnotes * https://www.flygen.org/skylight-navigation

• Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press,Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
• Subject: Flight / Neuroscience / Orientation behavior / Polarization