CAREER: Image speed and visual acuity during fly flight

该项目的工作是研究昆虫在飞行过程中如何科普快速图像运动。昆虫用它们的大脑来协调快速准确的空中机动，但由于粗糙的眼睛固定在它们的头上，它们不能像人类那样稳定图像。其结果是他们需要看到的物体的显着运动模糊，以便飞行。昆虫的大脑如何能够如此迅速地从快速移动的图像中收集信息，然后对其进行处理以产生适当的飞行反应，这是视觉科学中一个重要而尚未解决的问题。这些实验研究了束缚和自由飞行的果蝇在越来越具有挑战性的情况下（如昏暗的光线和低对比度）呈现移动图像时的转向努力。研究结果将有助于更好地理解动物飞行、人类视觉，并提高无人机等自主机器人的性能。该项目提供外联和培训机会，通过三项活动影响代表性不足的群体。首先，在佛罗里达国际大学培训本科生，他们中的大多数人都是传统的少数民族，以进行一些实验室工作。第二，在实验室里接待来自一个非营利组织的处于危险中的当地高中生，该组织旨在激励处于危险中的青少年和犯罪青年。第三，在迈阿密科学博物馆的年度大脑博览会上展示这些实验的便携式版本，这是一个社区外展活动，当地神经科学家致力于向更广泛的迈阿密地区的儿童教授大脑和行为科学。这项工作的目标是确定光子噪声与自我运动相结合的后果，并揭示苍蝇用来抵消其影响的神经和行为机制。光吸收的离散性和随机性决定了当光子稀少时，图像会受到低信噪比的影响。这种情况发生在光线摄入有限的时候，比如当环境昏暗时，或者当眼睛很小时，或者当物体在视野中快速移动时，这通常是快速飞行的必然结果。该项目旨在确定果蝇神经系统如何在需要准确的视觉信息来协调响应的空中运动时与退化的图像进行竞争。系留的苍蝇将看到快速移动的投影图案，这将建立流动引起的光子噪声，区域敏锐度和注意力之间的关系。在下一阶段，自由飞行的苍蝇通过障碍物将有助于确定飞行引起的噪声和转向决策的权衡，换句话说，解决并可能最大限度地减少流动引起的信号噪声的行为策略。最后，锐利的电极电生理记录将表征早期视觉神经元在观察快速移动模式时的空间和时间反应，这将成为观察快速光流的生物模型的基础。该项目的成果将为移动动物的视觉性能研究提供神经生物学见解，并为人工视觉系统的设计提供实用见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The work in this project investigates how insects cope with fast image motion during flight. Insects use their brains to coordinate quick and accurate aerial maneuvers, but with coarse eyes that are immovably fixed in their heads, they cannot stabilize images the way humans do. The result is significant motion blur of objects they need to see in order to fly. How insect brains can so quickly gather information from a fast-moving image, then process it to generate appropriate flight responses, is an important, unresolved problem in visual science. These experiments study the steering efforts of tethered and freely flying fruit flies as they are presented with moving images under increasingly challenging circumstances, such as dim light and low contrast. The results will contribute to better understanding animal flight, human vision, and improve the performance of autonomous robots, such as flying drones. This project produces outreach and training opportunities to impact underrepresented groups through three activities. First, training undergraduates at Florida International University, most of whom identify from traditional minority groups, to carry out some of the laboratory work. Second, hosting in the lab at-risk local high school students from a non-profit organization that aims to inspire at-risk and delinquent youth. Third, demonstrating a portable version of these experiments to the Miami Science Museum's annual Brain Fair, a community outreach event with local neuroscientists directed at teaching brain and behavioral sciences to children in the broader Miami area.The goal of this work is to determine the consequences of photon noise that is coupled to self-motion, and reveal the neural and behavioral mechanisms flies use to counteract its effects. The discrete and random nature of light absorption dictates that when photons are scarce, images suffer from low signal to noise ratios. This occurs whenever light intake is limited, such as when the environment is dim, or when eyes are physically small, or when objects move quickly across the visual field, which is often an inevitable result of quick flight. This project aims to determine how the fruit fly nervous system contends with degraded images just when it needs accurate visual information to coordinate responsive aerial movements. Tethered flies will view quickly moving projected patterns, which will establish the relationship between flow-induced photon noise, regional acuity, and attention. In the next stage, freely flying flies moving through obstacles will help determine the trade-offs of flight-induced noise and steering decisions, in other words the behavioral strategies that address and possibly minimize flow induced signal noise. And finally, sharp electrode elecrophysiological recordings will characterize spatial and temporal responses in early visual neurons while they view fast-moving patterns, which will then form the basis of biological models for viewing fast optic flow. The results of this project will offer neurobiological insight to the study of visual performance in moving animals, and practical insight to the design of artificial visual systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.