Neural circuit mechanisms underlying hierarchical visual processing in Drosophila

项目总结 要了解神经回路如何引起感觉计算，并最终产生感知，需要 将神经电路的生物特征与神经计算的抽象模型联系起来。在Vison中，一个模型 视觉感受野(RF)描述了神经元的反应是如何由视觉输入决定的 相遇。视觉RF还可以提供神经元功能的紧凑描述，揭示 神经元负责编码的外部环境的特征。视觉系统中的复杂RFS 负责像物体识别这样的高级计算以及视觉的中层特征 大小选择性和平移不变性等表示法。许多高阶视觉电路的复杂性 使得将这些表示的模型与它们所认为的生物回路联系起来变得困难 来代表。 跨感觉系统和物种的神经电路通常依赖于汇聚的计算和 编码外部环境特征的算法策略。该项目将利用这一事实来 在易于处理的上下文中解决复杂RF结构的生物学基础的问题，视觉系统 果蝇。在这项博士后培训奖学金中，申请者将使用最先进的成像技术和 描述果蝇视叶神经元复杂射频特征的神经活动荧光报告器 投射到中央大脑。这些结果将用于生成复杂RFS的分层模型 它们在生物回路中接地。 好了！

Project summary Understanding how neural circuits give rise to sensory computation and, ultimately, perception, requires connecting biological features of neural circuits to abstract models of neural computation. In vison, a model of the visual receptive field (RF) describes how a neuron's responses are determined by the visual inputs it encounters. The visual RF can also provide a compact description of a neuron's function, revealing which features of the external environment that neuron is responsible for encoding. Complex RFs in the visual system are responsible for high-level computations like object recognition as well as mid-level features of visual representation like size selectivity and translation invariance. The complexity of many higher-order visual circuits has made it difficult to connect models of these representations to the biological circuits that they are supposed to represent. Neural circuits across sensory systems and species often rely on convergent computational and algorithmic strategies to encode features of the external environment. This project will leverage this fact to address the question of the biological basis of complex RF structure in a tractable context, the visual system of Drosophila. In this postdoctoral training fellowship, the applicant will use state-of-the-art imaging techniques and fluorescent reporters of neural activity to describe complex RF features in neurons of the Drosophila optic lobe which project to the central brain. These results will be used to generate hierarchical models of complex RFs that are grounded in biological circuits. !