Topic: lobula plate tangential cells

Sensorimotor systems are inherently uncertain, either because of the physical nature of the sensory stimulus or because of noise within neural circuits. To curtail such limitations, sensorimotor systems combine information about the same event across different sensory sources to create robust internal representations for behavioral performance. Here we show that congruent multimodal self-movement signals are consistently found throughout populations of visual neurons, the lobula plate tangential cells (LPTCs). LPTCs monitor head and/or body rotations to support steering during locomotion1-3. W

When animals move, they induce changes in the relative position of objects in their environment. These changes are perceived as visual motion signals, known as optic flow. Fast and efficient interpretation of the global structure of optic flow is thought to be critical for maintaining stability and guiding the animal's course during navigation. In flies, the lobula plate tangential cells (LPTCs), a highly interconnected network of ~60 neurons, are known to be specialised optic flow detectors. Bridging the sensory periphery with motor output structures, LPTCs are ideally positioned for course c