ArticleJournal of neurophysiology2009
A novel neuronal pathway for visually guided escape in Drosophila melanogaster.
Article in Journal of neurophysiology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers.
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Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed.
- Hoverfly responses to looming stimuli depend on elevation and speed.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Synaptic high-frequency jumping synchronises vision to high-speed behaviour.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Drosophila escape motor circuit shows differential vulnerability to aging linked to functional decay.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Convergent escape behaviour from distinct visual processing of impending collision in fish and grasshoppers.The Journal of physiology · 2023Article
- Motor state changes escape behavior of crickets.iScience · 2023Article
- Dual Receptive Fields Underlying Target and Wide-Field Motion Sensitivity in Looming-Sensitive Descending Neurons.eNeuro · 2023Article
- Neural Circuit Mechanisms Involved in Animals' Detection of and Response to Visual Threats.Neuroscience bulletin · 2023Review
- Article
- Azimuthal invariance to looming stimuli in the Drosophila giant fiber escape circuit.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Approaching object acceleration differentially affects the predictions of neuronal collision avoidance models.Biological cybernetics · 2023Article
- Visual threats reduce blood-feeding and trigger escape responses in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Bumblebees display characteristics of active vision during robust obstacle avoidance flight.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Polarization contrasts and their effect on the gaze stabilization of crustaceans.The Journal of experimental biology · 2021Article
- A Looming Spatial Localization Neural Network Inspired by MLG1 Neurons in the CrabFrontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Balancing Prediction and Surprise: A Role for Active Sleep at the Dawn of Consciousness?Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2021Article
- Visual motion sensitivity in descending neurons in the hoverfly.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2020Article
- Article
- State-dependent decoupling of sensory and motor circuits underlies behavioral flexibility in Drosophila.Nature neuroscience · 2019Article
- Neural circuitry of a polycystin-mediated hydrodynamic startle response for predator avoidance.eLife · 2018Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
Drosophila melanogaster exhibits a robust escape response to objects approaching on a collision course. Although a pair of large command interneurons called the giant fibers (GFs) have been postulated to trigger such behaviors, their role has not been directly demonstrated. Here, we show that escape from visual stimuli like those generated by approaching predators does not rely on the activation of the GFs and consists of a more complex and less stereotyped motor sequence than that evoked by the GFs. Instead, the timing of escape is tightly correlated with the activity of previously undescribed descending interneurons that signal a threshold angular size of the approaching object. The activity pattern of these interneurons shares features with those of visual escape circuits of several species, including pigeons, frogs, and locusts, and may therefore have evolved under similar constraints. These results show that visually evoked escapes in Drosophila can rely on at least two descending neuronal pathways: the GFs and the novel pathway we characterize electrophysiologically. These pathways exhibit very different patterns of sensory activity and are associated with two distinct motor programs.
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