How the Brain Processes Color

Summary: Novel technology allows researchers to understand how a fruit fly’s brain processes color.

Source: University of Minnesota

Through the development of new technology, University of Minnesota researchers have developed a method that allows scientists to understand how a fruit fly’s brain responds to seeing color. Prior to this, being able to determine how a brain responds to color was limited to humans and animals with slower visual systems. A fruit fly, when compared to a human, has a visual system that is five times faster. Some predatory insects see ten times faster than humans.

“If we can understand how seeing color affects the brain, we will be able to better understand how different animals react to certain stimuli,” said Trevor Wardill, the study’s lead author and assistant professor in the College of Biological Sciences.

“In doing so, we will know what interests them most, how it impacts their behavior, and what advantages different color sensitivities may give to an individual’s or a species’ survival.”

Published in Scientific Reports, Wardill and Rachel Feord—a University of Cambridge Ph.D. student in Wardill’s laboratory—developed the new approach by:

  • developing a filter-based optics system for a two-photon microscope that divided the visible spectrum in a way that allowed the fruit flies to see light without interfering with the brain imaging by partnering Semrock, an optical filter manufacturer;
  • testing high-speed projectors and screen materials to identify a screen that maintained a near-constant brightness of each wavelength band at all points of the screen from UV to red light; and
  • producing transgenic fly strains of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) that differed in one or more of the following ways: screening pigment density, photoreceptor function and calcium activity indicator.
This shows a painted up lady
Through this, researchers developed a method that allows for a fly to be presented with more than 50 different types of high intensity wavelength bands across the visual spectrum. Image is in the public domain.

Through this, researchers developed a method that allows for a fly to be presented with more than 50 different types of high intensity wavelength bands across the visual spectrum, while allowing for simultaneous, uninterrupted brain imaging with maximum sensitivity (i.e., able to collect photons for the full imaging duty cycle) when compared to previous methods.

As a result of this testing, they found strain-specific sensitivities to colors among the fruit flies, with orange-eyed flies exhibiting a decreased sensitivity to light in the blue range and increased sensitivity in the green range when compared to their red-eyed counterparts.

“This work brings us one step closer to understanding which neurons react to which colors, the next step toward understanding how color sensitivities affect behavior and what advantages, if any, it can give an individual or species,” said Wardill.

About this visual processing research article

Source:
Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Contacts:
Press Office – University of Minnesota
Image Source:
The image is in the public domain.

Original Research: Open access
“A novel setup for simultaneous two-photon functional imaging and precise spectral and spatial visual stimulation in Drosophila” by Rachael C. Feord et al. Scientific Reports.


Abstract

A novel setup for simultaneous two-photon functional imaging and precise spectral and spatial visual stimulation in Drosophila

Motion vision has been extensively characterised in Drosophila melanogaster, but substantially less is known about how flies process colour, or how spectral information affects other visual modalities. To accurately dissect the components of the early visual system responsible for processing colour, we developed a versatile visual stimulation setup to probe combined spatial, temporal and spectral response properties. Using flies expressing neural activity indicators, we tracked visual responses in the medulla, the second visual neuropil, to a projected colour stimulus. The introduction of custom bandpass optical filters enables simultaneous two-photon imaging and visual stimulation over a large range of wavelengths without compromising the temporal stimulation rate. With monochromator-produced light, any spectral bandwidth and centre wavelength from 390 to 730 nm can be selected to produce a narrow spectral hue. A specialised screen material scatters each band of light across the visible spectrum equally at all locations of the screen, thus enabling presentation of spatially structured stimuli. We show layer-specific shifts of spectral response properties in the medulla correlating with projection regions of photoreceptor terminals.

Join our Newsletter
I agree to have my personal information transferred to AWeber for Neuroscience Newsletter ( more information )
Sign up to receive our recent neuroscience headlines and summaries sent to your email once a day, totally free.
We hate spam and only use your email to contact you about newsletters. You can cancel your subscription any time.