IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v439y2006i7076d10.1038_nature04381.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Distinct memory traces for two visual features in the Drosophila brain

Author

Listed:
  • Gang Liu

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences
    Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Holger Seiler

    (Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiologie, Am Hubland)

  • Ai Wen

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Troy Zars

    (Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiologie, Am Hubland
    University of Missouri, Columbia)

  • Kei Ito

    (The University of Tokyo)

  • Reinhard Wolf

    (Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiologie, Am Hubland)

  • Martin Heisenberg

    (Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiologie, Am Hubland)

  • Li Liu

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

The fly Drosophila melanogaster can discriminate and remember visual landmarks. It analyses selected parts of its visual environment according to a small number of pattern parameters such as size, colour or contour orientation, and stores particular parameter values. Like humans, flies recognize patterns independently of the retinal position during acquisition of the pattern (translation invariance). Here we show that the central-most part of the fly brain, the fan-shaped body, contains parts of a network mediating visual pattern recognition. We have identified short-term memory traces of two pattern parameters—elevation in the panorama and contour orientation. These can be localized to two groups of neurons extending branches as parallel, horizontal strata in the fan-shaped body. The central location of this memory store is well suited to mediate translational invariance.

Suggested Citation

  • Gang Liu & Holger Seiler & Ai Wen & Troy Zars & Kei Ito & Reinhard Wolf & Martin Heisenberg & Li Liu, 2006. "Distinct memory traces for two visual features in the Drosophila brain," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7076), pages 551-556, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:439:y:2006:i:7076:d:10.1038_nature04381
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04381
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature04381?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elizabeth B Brown & Kreesha D Shah & Richard Faville & Benjamin Kottler & Alex C Keene, 2020. "Drosophila insulin-like peptide 2 mediates dietary regulation of sleep intensity," PLOS Genetics, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-26, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:439:y:2006:i:7076:d:10.1038_nature04381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.