Meeting Abstract

P1.70  Friday, Jan. 4  Escape responses in freely flying fruit flies MUIJRES, FT*; DICKINSON, M; Univ. of Washington, Seattle; Univ. of Washington, Seattle fmuijres@uw.edu

Fruit flies and other insects possess a range of stereotypic flight responses that are triggered by particular sensory stimuli. One such example is an evasive maneuver in response to looming stimuli, which enables a fly to avoid collisions as well as for escape from approaching predators. During flight, objects may loom from any direction and an animal must generate an evasive maneuver in the correct direction if it is to avoid impact or escape. Thus, the circuitry that underlies evasive maneuvers must encode the direction of the looming stimulus and trigger an appropriately directed motor response. We are studying the aversive maneuvers of free-flying fruit flies (Drosophila spp.) to virtual looming objects in a flight arena lined with an electronic visual display. Using a set of three high-speed cameras (7,500 frames per second), we track body and wing movements before, during and after the presentation of a looming circular object. The location of the looming object in the flies’ frame of reference varies between trials, allowing us to study the relationship between stimulus direction and motor response.