We derive experimentally based estimates of the energy used by neural mechanisms to code known quantities of information. Biophysical measurements from cells in the blowfly retina yield estimates of the ATP required to generate graded (analog) electrical signals that transmit known amounts of information. Energy consumption is several orders of magnitude greater than the thermodynamic minimum. It costs 10(4) ATP molecules to transmit a bit at a chemical synapse, and 10(6)-10(7) ATP for graded signals in an interneuron or a photoreceptor, or for spike coding. Therefore, in noise-limited signaling systems, a weak pathway of low capacity transmits information more economically, which promotes the distribution of information among multiple pathways.

The metabolic cost of neural information

nouns or of photographs of faces. This difference in roles of the two hemispheres was to be tested by using right-handed and left-handed Ss. The results were negative, but also the hypotheses were weak. Does a recognition task not always involve the dominant hemisphere? By considering large groups of Ss having brain lesions in widely differing areas , and by subjecting them to a test battery (involving manipulation of temporal concepts estimating time periods , sequence of events , judging and producing short and long intervals singly and in pairs), Bruyer & Bontemps­ Devogel (1979) found that by comparison with a control group, the Ss with lesions showed a lower level of performance . The group with frontal lesions showed a marked disability. A final point to indicate, and it is merely a confIrmation, is that there is no relationship between the alpha rhythm and temporal estimations (Adam et al 1971) . However, Coffin & Ganz ( 1 977) found in the estimation of a 5 sec task a high correlation between the estima­ tions and the weighted mean frequency of the EEG close to the alpha fre­

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.ps.35.020184.000245

Perception and estimation of time.

http://web.as.uky.edu/Biology/faculty/cooper/SENSORY%20Biology%20class/Evolution%20of%20Insect%20Olfaction.pdf

Evolution of insect olfaction.

Airborne insects are miniature w ing-flapping aircraft the visually guided manoeuvres of which depend on analogue, ‘fly-by-wire’ controls. The front-end of their visuomotor system consists of a pair of com pound eyes which are masterpieces of integrated optics and neural design. They rely on an array of passive sensors driving an orderly analogue neural network. We explored in concrete terms how motion-detecting neurons might possibly be used to solve navigational tasks involving obstacle avoidance in a creature whose wings are exquisitely guided by eyes with a poor spatial resolution. We designed, simulated, and built a complete terrestrial creature which moves about and avoids obstacles solely by evaluating the relative motion between itself and the environment. The compound eye uses an array of elementary motion detectors (emds) as smart, passive ranging sensors. Like its physiological counterpart, the visuomotor system is based on analogue, continuous-time processing and does not make use of conventional computers. It uses hardly any memory to adjust the robot’s heading in real time via a local and intermittent visuomotor feedback loop. This paper shows that the understanding of some invertebrate sensory-motor systems has now reached a level able to provide valuable design hints. Our approach brings into prominence the mutual constraints in the designs of a sensory and a motor system, in both living and non-living ambulatory creatures.

From insect vision to robot vision

The lobula-complex of flies consists of the highest order visual neuropils of the optic lobe, the lobula plate and the lobula. Anatomical and electrophysiological investigations of the lobula plate have revealed that it contains a system of large directionally selective motion sensitive interneurons. The structure, response characteristics and synaptic interactions of these interneurons are described. There is strong evidence that the lobula plate is the main motion computation centre of the optic lobe controlling the optomotor responses of the fly. Additional functions in the visual fixation and tracking behaviour and in the figure-ground discrimination seem likely. The lobula has so far been studied only anatomically but not physiologically. Rather indirect evidence suggests that it computes visual signals initiating escape behaviour. The existence of male specific interneurons in this neuropil indicates that it is additionally involved in the control of chasing behaviour typical of males.

The Lobula-Complex of the Fly: Structure, Function and Significance in Visual Behaviour

The pupil mechanism of Hymenoptera (suborder Apocrita) has been studied by simultaneous recordings of transmission and reflection from the compound eye of virtually intact animals. It is confirmed that the light flux in the photoreceptors is controlled by pigment granules in the retinula cells; the pigment migration serves a pupil function. Experimental methods are described for investigation of the pupil process using only reflection measurements. Using polarised light, it is found that backscattered light from the rhabdom is more strongly depolarised than light backscattered from retinula cell pigment granules. The dynamic characteristics of the pigment migration are determined more accurately than could be done previously with histological methods. The hymenopteran pupil mechanism has a familiar sigmoid intensity dependence; the time constant is 5-15 s. The pupil absorbance spectrum is broad, peaking at about 520 nm. The correspondence of this spectrum with known spectral sensitivities exemplifies that the pupil mechanism is a useful part of the visual system.

/pdf/insect-pupil-mechanisms-i-on-the-pigment-migration-in-the-204jrnmhuz.pdf

Insect Pupil Mechanisms. I. On the Pigment Migration in the Retinula Cells of Hymenoptera (Suborder Apocrita)

The previously derived optical demands for the neural superposition eye are experimentally tested in the compound eye ofMusca domestica L. The optical requirements are fulfilled except in the marginal regions. Taking into account the gradient in spatial packing density of ommatidial axes in a horizontal direction the expected torque response of the fly is calculated and compared with results obtained by Reichardt (1973). The similarity of the curves suggests that existing gradients in the part of the neural network serving this orientation behaviour may be negligible with respect to the studied geometrical gradient.

Organization of visual axes in the compound eye of the fly Musca domestica L. and behavioural consequences

Action potentials evoked by stepwise-moving visual stimuli have been recorded extracellularly from the horizontally selective movement detectors in the lobula complex of the blowflyCalliphora erythrocephala (M.).

Receptive-field characteristics of a directionally selective movement detector in visual-system of blowfly

Photopigment conversions expressed in receptor potential and membrane resistance of blowfly visual sense cells

Photopigment conversions expressed in receptor potential and membrane resistance of blowfly visual sense cells.

VISUAL sense cells of flies are depolarised at illumination1–3 This event triggers the pupil mechanism: pigment granules dispersed throughout the cytoplasm migrate towards the rhabdomere, that is, the light-guiding rod-like part of the sense cell which contains the visual pigment molecules4–8 The amount of pigment granules accumulated at the boundary of the rhabdomere controls, through absorption and scattering, the light flux in the photoreceptor4

Photopigment conversions expressed in pupil mechanism of blowfly visual sense cells

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