Neural Circuitry for Polarized-Light Perception

尼古拉斯·施特劳斯菲尔德博士是一位极具天赋的科学家，他一直在收集大量关于昆虫大脑组织的信息。他以前的工作主要集中在双翅昆虫的神经解剖学和脑和胸神经系统的功能组织，特别是苍蝇。在他的新研究计划中，他将利用节肢动物大脑的一个基本特征：即存在数量可控制的具有特征形式的大神经细胞，这些细胞在一个物种的所有个体中都很容易识别，并且可以明确地与特定的运动神经元池有关，这些神经元池支配着用于特定运动功能的已识别肌肉。这项新研究的最终目标是解决介导偏振光取向的神经元的功能组织。为此，该项目仅限于分析明确定义和神经解剖学上可识别的感觉系统，从而识别运动神经元和肌肉。生理学研究是专门设计来测试运动前下降神经元在其他视觉和机械线索的背景下对偏振光的反应，比如通常会遇到的活动。这项研究将检验目前关于偏振光敏感网络的假设。这项工作很重要，因为它试图从功能上详细描述从感觉输入到肌肉运动的完整神经元回路，在这个回路中，神经元的解剖结构已经得到了很好的描述。

Dr. Nicholas Strausfeld is an extremely gifted scientist who has been gathering a volume of information on the organization of the insect brain. His previous work has focused on the neuroanatomy and functional organization of the brain and thoracic nervous system of dipterous insects, in particular the blowfly. In his new research program he shall exploit a cardinal feature of arthropod brains: namely, the presence of a manageable number of large nerve cells with characteristic forms, which are readily identifiable in all individuals of a species and which can be unambiguously related to specific motor neuron pools innervating identified muscles used in a specified locomotor function. The ultimate goal of this new line of research is to resolve the functional organization of neurons that mediate polarized-light orientation. To this end the project is restricted to the analysis of clearly defined and neuroanatomically identifiable sensory systems leading to identified motor neurons and muscles. The physiological studies are specifically designed to test the activities of premotor descending neurons in response to polarized light in the context of other visual and mechanical cues, such as would normally be encountered. The research will test current hypotheses concerning polarized-light-sensitive networks. This work is important because it seeks to functionally detail a complete neuronal circuit from sensory input to muscle movement, a circuit in which the anatomy of the neurons has already been beautifully described.