Sarah's latest paper is now out. In the paper she describes hoverfly descending neurons that respond to visual stimuli. She shows that they have overlapping response properties, meaning that one stimulus alone rarely gives a reliable answer to the type of neuron you're recording from. It's an extremely solid paper, showing receptive field data and responses to stimuli of different types (3D optic flow, targets, looming objects, sinusoidal gratings) making it a great foundation for our future work.
By Karin
Sarah's latest paper is now out. In the paper she describes hoverfly descending neurons that respond to visual stimuli. She shows that they have overlapping response properties, meaning that one stimulus alone rarely gives a reliable answer to the type of neuron you're recording from. It's an extremely solid paper, showing receptive field data and responses to stimuli of different types (3D optic flow, targets, looming objects, sinusoidal gratings) making it a great foundation for our future work.
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Hello everyone, my name is Joseph Fabian and just like Yuri, I am a new postdoc in Karin's lab. I have recently returned to Australia, after working for 18 months as a postdoc in bioengineering at Imperial College London, where I studied mechanosensors underlying fly-by-feel in dragonfly wings. Prior to that I completed my PhD at the University of Adelaide, studying target-detecting neurons and the optic lobes of dragonflies. Below I have attached some examples of work I did in each of these roles. The top image shows a section of the leading edge of a dragonfly wing, containing airflow and strain sensors. The bottom shows a reconstruction of a Binocular Small Target Motion Detector neuron from a dragonfly brain. My research interests involve understanding what strategies neuronal systems use to solve complex sensory problems. Many insects are incredible tiny flying machines, which achieve their performance through the clever use of control systems. My experience is in electrophysiological recording and neuroanatomical imaging, and I plan on using both of these techniques in my new role. Within Karin's lab I will be studying target and motion sensitive neurons in the optic lobes and ventral nerve cord of hoverflies, in order to understand how different stages of visual processing shape the information which controls flight behaviour.
Outside of the lab, I am an avid motorsports fan, casual sports player and lover of impressive feats of engineering (planes, medieval castles and modern skyscrapers especially). My name is Yuri Ogawa. I have joined to Karin’s lab since last November.
After finishing my PhD studies in Japan, I started my journey in Australia in 2013 with 9 months job contract at UWA and expected going back to Japan after that. However, I have been lucky enough to continue enjoying science here and Aussie life, e.g. encountering beautiful wildlife, chilling out at beaches as well as winery hopping. My research interest is understanding of how a brain works; how it processes sensory inputs at single neuron level and generates behavioural outcome in invertebrates despite only carrying a relatively small number of neurons. Specifically, I have been fascinated by the fact that the visual systems have evolved to extract ecologically relevant information, to adapt the specific habitat, and to perform species-specific outstanding behaviour such as pursuing a small moving object in hoverflies. Currently, I have been working on to reconstruct the view of male hoverflies when they are pursuing a moving target (bead) based on their 3D flight trajectory data provided by Malin. The reconstructed view will contain the information of the target, which projected onto the eye as a small moving object, and the optic flow. I will use it as visual stimuli to record behavioural responses in tethered hoverflies to test whether it elicits the pursuing behaviour. I hope I can share some videos of my experiments next time. My name is Yuri Ogawa. I have joined to Karin’s lab since last November. After finishing my PhD studies in Japan, I started my journey in Australia in 2013 with 9 months job contract at UWA and expected going back to Japan after that. However, I have been lucky enough to continue enjoying science here and Aussie life, e.g. encountering beautiful wildlife, chilling out at beaches as well as winery hopping.
My research interest is understanding of how a brain works; how it processes sensory inputs at single neuron level and generates behavioural outcome in invertebrates despite only carrying a relatively small number of neurons. Specifically, I have been fascinated by the fact that the visual systems have evolved to extract ecologically relevant information, to adapt the specific habitat, and to perform species-specific outstanding behaviour such as pursuing a small moving object in hoverflies. Currently, I have been working on to reconstruct the view of male hoverflies when they are pursuing a moving target (bead) based on their 3D flight trajectory data provided by Malin. The reconstructed view will contain the information of the target, which projected onto the eye as a small moving object, and the optic flow. I will use it as visual stimuli to record behavioural responses in tethered hoverflies to test whether it elicits the pursuing behaviour. I hope I can share some videos of my experiments next time. My name is Bernie Lagana and I am just about to start the second year of my Medical Degree at Flinders University. A component of this course is called Advanced Studies in which we are required to undertake a research project. In the nine years preceding this degree I was a freelance musician in Sydney. My experience in research and scientific methodology was quite limited. My goals for this project are to learn about scientific experimental methods, critiquing and filing research papers using EndNote and data analysis and basic coding using MatLab. Over the last few months, I’ve been looking at the effects of stress on the bodyweight and activity of Hoverflies. The flies are being exposed to stress by being permanently kept in either bright light or mechanically unstable conditions through the use of a rocker table. The flies have been being weighed twice a week (excluding the Summer break) and had their activity levels measured once a week using a Locomotive Activity Monitor. While I am yet to have enough data to have any conclusive findings, the possibility of where this research could be channelled is exciting! If I am able to make correlations between my results and similar human studies, this could add to the evidence of using Hoverflies as a model for future experiments of human stress response. If there is strong evidence pointing to Hoverflies having a high resilience to stress, then with the current state of climate change, this could add to the body of evidence for encouraging Hoverflies as alternate pollinators to bees in the future. |
Hoverfly Vision
The hoverfly vision group can be found at 2 locations: At Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and at Uppsala University in Sweden. Archives
January 2022
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