Mechanisms of celestial navigation in Drosophila

像古代的水手一样，许多飞行动物有能力利用来自地面和天空的线索在地球仪上进行长距离航行。动物可以用来作为指南针的一个特别可靠的天空特征是太阳光在大气中散射时的偏振模式。 该项目将研究动物如何利用偏振光导航，通过利用最先进的遗传和生理方法，可在常见的果蝇，果蝇。这些结果将为我们提供一个普遍的问题，即大脑中的回路如何进行精确的计算，以指导运动和其他运动动作。将开发拟议研究中使用的简化、廉价的实验装置，用于教育和推广。这些发现还将有助于正在进行的设计小型节能自主飞行器的工作，这些飞行器可以在不需要GPS的情况下执行民用和军用任务。使用这种实验上强大的遗传模型生物，将有可能确定大脑中的专门细胞和电路如何检测和处理偏振光，并将其用作导航的指南针参考。该项目将利用定制的飞行模拟器，动物在人造天空下导航，可以通过实验进行操纵。该研究还将采用最近开发的双光子钙成像技术，在自由飞行的受试者中测量大脑相关神经回路中细胞的活动，因为正在执行导航任务，这是以前没有达到的分析水平。这些研究的结果将通过在同行评审的期刊上发表文章和在科学会议上介绍来传播。

Like ancient mariners, many flying animals have the ability to navigate long distances across the globe using cues from the earth and sky. One particularly reliable feature of the sky that animals can use as a compass is the pattern by which light from the sun is polarized as it scatters in the atmosphere. This project will study how animals navigate using polarized skylight, by exploiting state-of-the art genetic and physiological approaches that are available in the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The results will provide insight into the general question of how circuits in the brain can make accurate calculations that guide locomotion and other motor actions. Simplified, inexpensive versions of the experimental devices used in the proposed studies will be developed for use in education and outreach. The findings will also benefit ongoing efforts to engineer small, energy-efficient autonomous air vehicles that can perform useful missions for civilian and military applications without the need of GPS.Using this experimentally powerful genetic model organism, it will be possible to determine how specialized cells and circuits in the brain detect and process polarized light and use it as a compass reference for navigation. The project will make use of custom-built flight simulators, in which animals navigate under an artificial sky that may be experimentally manipulated. The research will also employ recently developed techniques of two-photon calcium imaging in freely flying subjects for measuring the activity of cells within relevant neural circuits of the brain as navigation tasks are being performed, a level of analysis not previously achieved. Results from these studies will be disseminated through publications in peer-reviewed journals, and through presentations at scientific conferences.