ArticlePLoS biology2006
Insect detection of small targets moving in visual clutter.
Article in PLoS biology, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
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47 citing papers in PubMed.
- Combining visual motion and luminance features to enhance the detection of small moving objects in a bioinspired model.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Understanding the mechanism of facilitation in hoverfly TSDNs.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- On analogies in vertebrate and insect visual systems.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2025Review
- The visual stimuli attributes instrumental for collective-motion-related decision-making in locusts.PNAS nexus · 2024Article
- Dual Receptive Fields Underlying Target and Wide-Field Motion Sensitivity in Looming-Sensitive Descending Neurons.eNeuro · 2023Article
- Visual versus visual-inertial guidance in hawks pursuing terrestrial targets.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Article
- Bioinspired figure-ground discrimination via visual motion smoothing.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Exploration of motion inhibition for the suppression of false positives in biologically inspired small target detection algorithms from a moving platform.Biological cybernetics · 2022Article
- Visual and motor signatures of locomotion dynamically shape a population code for feature detection ineLife · 2022Article
- Dragonfly Neurons Selectively Attend to Targets Within Natural Scenes.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2022Article
- Mathematical study of neural feedback roles in small target motion detection.Frontiers in neurorobotics · 2022Article
- Facilitation of neural responses to targets moving against optic flow.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Detecting Small Size and Minimal Thermal Signature Targets in Infrared Imagery Using Biologically Inspired Vision.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- A Looming Spatial Localization Neural Network Inspired by MLG1 Neurons in the CrabFrontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Modeling Nonlinear Dendritic Processing of Facilitation in a Dragonfly Target-Tracking Neuron.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2021Article
- Direction Selective Neurons Responsive to Horizontal Motion in a Crab Reflect an Adaptation to Prevailing Movements in Flat Environments.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2020Article
- Object-Displacement-Sensitive Visual Neurons Drive Freezing in Drosophila.Current biology : CB · 2020Article
- Non-canonical Receptive Field Properties and Neuromodulation of Feature-Detecting Neurons in Flies.Current biology : CB · 2020Article
- Visual motion sensitivity in descending neurons in the hoverfly.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2020Article
- Integration of Small- and Wide-Field Visual Features in Target-Selective Descending Neurons of both Predatory and Nonpredatory Dipterans.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2018Article
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3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Detection of targets that move within visual clutter is a common task for animals searching for prey or conspecifics, a task made even more difficult when a moving pursuer needs to analyze targets against the motion of background texture (clutter). Despite the limited optical acuity of the compound eye of insects, this challenging task seems to have been solved by their tiny visual system. Here we describe neurons found in the male hoverfly, Eristalis tenax, that respond selectively to small moving targets. Although many of these target neurons are inhibited by the motion of a background pattern, others respond to target motion within the receptive field under a surprisingly large range of background motion stimuli. Some neurons respond whether or not there is a speed differential between target and background. Analysis of responses to very small targets (smaller than the size of the visual field of single photoreceptors) or those targets with reduced contrast shows that these neurons have extraordinarily high contrast sensitivity. Our data suggest that rejection of background motion may result from extreme selectivity for small targets contrasting against local patches of the background, combined with this high sensitivity, such that background patterns rarely contain features that satisfactorily drive the neuron.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.