Spatial vision in insects: How visual information processing is facilitated by an active flight and gaze strategy

Insects such as flies or bees, with their miniature brains, are able to control highly aerobatic flight maneuvres and to solve spatial vision tasks, such as avoiding collisions with obstacles, landing on objects, or even localizing a previously learnt inconspicuous goal on the basis of environmental cues. With regard to solving such spatial tasks, these insects still outperform man-made autonomous flying systems. To accomplish their extraordinary performance, flies and bees have been shown by their characteristic behavioral actions to actively shape the dynamics of the image flow on their eyes (“optic flow”). The neural processing of information about the spatial layout of the environment is greatly facilitated by segregating the rotational from the translational optic flow component through a saccadic flight and gaze strategy. This active vision strategy thus enables the nervous system to solve apparently complex spatial vision tasks in a particularly efficient and parsimonious way. The key idea of this review is that biological agents, such as flies or bees, acquire at least part of their strength as autonomous systems through active interactions with their environment and not by simply processing passively gained information about the world. These agent-environment interactions lead to adaptive behavior in surroundings of a wide range of complexity. Animals with even tiny brains, such as insects, are capable of performing extraordinarily well in their behavioral contexts by making optimal use of the closed action–perception loop. Model simulations and robotic implementations show that the smart biological mechanisms of motion computation and visually-guided flight control might be helpful to find technical solutions, for example, when designing micro air vehicles carrying a miniaturized, low-weight on-board processor.

Event Abstract Back to Event Head – Body coordination in Drosophila melanogaster Bart R. Geurten1*, Philipp Jähde1 and Martin C. Göpfert1 1 Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Cellular Neurobiology, Germany Drosophila melanogaster like many other insects organises its locomotion in prolonged phases of translational movement that are interspersed by fast rotations called saccades. This saccadic locomotion strategy, which is found in insects and vertebrates (Collett and Land 1975; Boeddeker et al. 2010; Ribak, Egge, and Swallow 2009; Geurten et al. 2010; Eckmeier et al. 2008) is believed to enhance the 3D-information in visual perception. Schilstra and van Hateren documented that the head of blowflies rotates even faster than the body (Schilstra and Hateren 1999; Hateren and Schilstra 1999), further reducing the effective duration of the saccade. We tracked freely walking Drosophila melanogaster and found that they intersperse translational movements with fast saccadic rotations, similar as reported for blowflies by Blaj and van Hateren (Blaj and Van Hateren 2004). Reconstructing the head and body movements from high-speed recordings revealed that unlike blowflies, Drosophila does not move its head relative to the thorax during the saccades, which thus represent pure ‘body’ saccades. Even though single saccadic movements of the head were observed, saccadic yaw movements seem to be governed by a different behavioural strategy than in walking Calliphora. By modelling the visual input, we found that unlike blowflies, Drosophila would not profit from additional head rotations because of the lower spatial acuity of its eyes. This explains why Drosophila performs pure body saccades – during walking and presumably also during flight. References Blaj, G, and J H van Hateren. 2004. “Saccadic Head and Thorax Movements in Freely Walking Blowflies.” Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology 190 (11) (November): 861–868. Boeddeker, Norbert, Laura Dittmar, Wolfgang Stürzl, and Martin Egelhaaf. 2010. “The Fine Structure of Honeybee Head and Body Yaw Movements in a Homing Task.” Proceedings. Biological Sciences / The Royal Society 277 (1689) (June 22): 1899–1906. Collett, T.S., and M.F. Land. 1975. “Visual Control of Flight Behaviour in the Hoverfly Syritta Pipiens L.” Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology V99 (1) (March): 1–66. Eckmeier, D., B.R.H. Geurten, D. Kress, M. Mertes, R. Kern, M. Egelhaaf, and H.J. Bischof. 2008. “Gaze Strategy in the Free Flying Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia Guttata).” PLoS ONE 3 (12) (December): e3956. Geurten, Bart R. H., Roland Kern, Elke Braun, and Martin Egelhaaf. 2010. “A Syntax of Hoverfly Flight Prototypes.” Journal of Experimental Biology 213 (14) (July 15): 2461–2475. Hateren, JH, and C Schilstra. 1999. “Blowfly Flight and Optic Flow. II. Head Movements During Flight.” Journal of Experimental Biology 202 (11) (June 1): 1491–1500. Ribak, Gal, Alison R. Egge, and John G. Swallow. 2009. “Saccadic Head Rotations During Walking in the Stalk-eyed Fly (Cyrtodiopsis Dalmanni).” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Schilstra, C., and J.H. van Hateren. 1999. “Blowfly Flight and Optic Flow I. Thorax Kinematics and Flight Dynamics.” Journal of Experimental Biology 202 (11) (June): 1481–1490. Keywords: motion vision, Drosophila melanogaster, saccade, Neuroethology, Visual Acuity Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: Motion vision Citation: Geurten BR, Jähde P and Göpfert MC (2019). Head – Body coordination in Drosophila melanogaster. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00055 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Bart R Geurten, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Cellular Neurobiology, Göttingen, 37077, Germany, bgeurte@gwdg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Google Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Google Scholar Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert PubMed Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Event Abstract Back to Event Sensitivity to motion and higher-order visual processing in nocturnal and diurnal hawk moths Anna L. Stöckl1*, David O'Carroll2 and Eric Warrant1 1 Lund University, Biology, Sweden 2 The University of Adelaide, School of Medical Sciences, Australia Even though humans see poorly at night, the majority of the world’s animals – both on land and under water – are active in dim light and many of them have excellent vision. Despite possessing tiny eyes and brains, nocturnal insects can distinguish colour, avoid obstacles during flight and find their way home using learned visual landmarks. But how is this remarkable visual performance possible? How have the properties of the visual circuitry been optimised to maximize visual performance in dim light conditions? In order to approach these questions, we are studying the visual motion processing circuitry in hovering hawkmoths – a group of fast-flying insects renowned for their impressive visual abilities, in which closely related species are active under completely different light conditions, ranging from bright sunlight to starlight. One way of increasing visual performance in dim light is to spatially sum signals from neighbouring visual channels. In the first optic neuropil of insects, the lamina, the monopolar cells of nocturnal species possess an anatomy that makes them well suited to the summation of visual signals: their lateral processes are long and extend to neighbouring cartridges. Using the Golgi staining method, we compared the lengths of these lateral processes between the day-active hawkmoth Macroglossum stellaratum and the night-active Deilephila elpenor. As predicted for a possible function in spatial summation, the lateral processes of D. elpenor are longer than those of M. stellaratum and could potentially pool information from cartridges further away. Wide-field motion-sensitive neurons in the lobula plate are tuned to the optic flow experienced during flight. We recorded from these neurons to quantify the spatial and temporal response characteristics of the visual system of hawkmoths, to extract the amount of spatial and temporal summation implemented in both nocturnal and diurnal species. Preliminary results from intracellular recordings at day-light intensities show that HS-like neurons in M. stellaratum respond to higher spatial and temporal frequencies than those of D. elpenor, even though both species have comparable optics, which strongly suggests spatial and temporal summation of signals. Further recordings at decreasing light intensities will allow us to determine the general neural strategies that nocturnal species use to optimise visual performance at night, principles that are likely to apply to all nocturnal animals. Keywords: motion vision, Lamina, nocturnal vision, Lobula plate, hawkmoths, spatial summation Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: Motion vision Citation: Stöckl AL, O'Carroll D and Warrant E (2019). Sensitivity to motion and higher-order visual processing in nocturnal and diurnal hawk moths. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00112 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 27 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Ms. Anna L Stöckl, Lund University, Biology, Lund, 223 62, Sweden, anna.stoeckl@uni-konstanz.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Anna L Stöckl David O'Carroll Eric Warrant Google Anna L Stöckl David O'Carroll Eric Warrant Google Scholar Anna L Stöckl David O'Carroll Eric Warrant PubMed Anna L Stöckl David O'Carroll Eric Warrant Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Many flying insects exhibit an active flight and gaze strategy: purely translational flight segments alternate with quick turns called saccades. To generate such a saccadic flight pattern, the animals decide the timing, direction, and amplitude of the next saccade during the previous translatory intersaccadic interval. The information underlying these decisions is assumed to be extracted from the retinal image displacements (optic flow), which scale with the distance to objects during the intersaccadic flight phases. In an earlier study we proposed a saccade-generation mechanism based on the responses of large-field motion-sensitive neurons. In closed-loop simulations we achieved collision avoidance behavior in a limited set of environments but observed collisions in others. Here we show by open-loop simulations that the cause of this observation is the known texture-dependence of elementary motion detection in flies, reflected also in the responses of large-field neurons as used in our model. We verified by electrophysiological experiments that this result is not an artifact of the sensory model. Already subtle changes in the texture may lead to qualitative differences in the responses of both our model cells and their biological counterparts in the fly's brain. Nonetheless, free flight behavior of blowflies is only moderately affected by such texture changes. This divergent texture dependence of motion-sensitive neurons and behavioral performance suggests either mechanisms that compensate for the texture dependence of the visual motion pathway at the level of the circuits generating the saccadic turn decisions or the involvement of a hypothetical parallel pathway in saccadic control that provides the information for collision avoidance independent of the textural properties of the environment.

This study explored whether benzodiazepines selectively affect aspects of attention and/or visual information processing, as they do memory. A cued visual-search paradigm was employed, using normal volunteers and a single dose of triazolam. This paradigm provided for a detailed examination of two aspects of visual attention and information processing: 1) controlled versus automatic attention allocation (via central and peripheral cues), and 2) the extent to which processing an item in a non-cued location affects performance (via cue-validity). Triazolam, compared to placebo, significantly increased response time, and Drug Condition interacted with Cue-Validity but not Cue-Type. Based on these data, we argue that triazolam does not affect attention allocation but does affect attentional disengagement and/or attention switching mechanisms.

Viewing strategies are strategies used to support visual information processing. These strategies may differ between children with cerebral visual impairment (CVI), children with ocular visual impairment, and children with normal vision since visual impairment might have an impact on viewing behavior. In current visual rehabilitation practice a variety of strategies is used without consideration of the differences in etiology of the visual impairment or in the spontaneous viewing strategies used. This systematic scoping review focuses on viewing strategies used during near school-based tasks like reading and on possible interventions aimed at viewing strategies. The goal is threefold: (1) creating a clear concept of viewing strategies, (2) mapping differences in viewing strategies between children with ocular visual impairment, children with CVI and children with normal vision, and (3) identifying interventions that can improve visual processing by targeting viewing strategies. Four databases were used to conduct the literature search: PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO and Cochrane. Seven hundred and ninety-nine articles were screened by two independent reviewers using PRISMA reporting guidelines of which 30 were included for qualitative analysis. Only five studies explicitly mentioned strategies used during visual processing, namely gaze strategies, reading strategies and search strategies. We define a viewing strategy as a conscious and systematic way of viewing during task performance. The results of this review are integrated with different attention network systems, which provide direction on how to design future interventions targeting the use of viewing strategies to improve different aspects of visual processing.

Flying insects are able to fly smartly in an unpredictable environment. It has been found that flying insects have smart neurons inside their tiny brains that are sensitive to visual motion also called optic flow. Consequently, flying insects rely mainly on visual motion during their flight maneuvers such as: takeoff or landing, terrain following, tunnel crossing, lateral and frontal obstacle avoidance, and adjusting flight speed in a cluttered environment. Optic flow can be defined as the vector field of the apparent motion of objects, surfaces, and edges in a visual scene generated by the relative motion between an observer (an eye or a camera) and the scene. Translational optic flow is particularly interesting for short-range navigation because it depends on the ratio between (i) the relative linear speed of the visual scene with respect to the observer and (ii) the distance of the observer from obstacles in the surrounding environment without any direct measurement of either speed or distance. In flying insects, roll stabilization reflex and yaw saccades attenuate any rotation at the eye level in roll and yaw respectively (i.e. to cancel any rotational optic flow) in order to ensure pure translational optic flow between two successive saccades. Our survey focuses on feedback-loops which use the translational optic flow that insects employ for collision-free navigation. Optic flow is likely, over the next decade to be one of the most important visual cues that can explain flying insects' behaviors for short-range navigation maneuvers in complex tunnels. Conversely, the biorobotic approach can therefore help to develop innovative flight control systems for flying robots with the aim of mimicking flying insects’ abilities and better understanding their flight.

Ocular responses to radial optic flow and single accelerated targets in humans

The ability to process simultaneously presented auditory and visual information is a necessary component underlying many cognitive tasks. While this ability is often taken for granted, there is evidence that under many conditions auditory input attenuates processing of corresponding visual input. The current study investigated infants' processing of visual input under unimodal and cross-modal conditions. Results of the three reported experiments indicate that different auditory input had different effects on infants' processing of visual information. In particular, unfamiliar auditory input slowed down visual processing, whereas more familiar auditory input did not. These results elucidate mechanisms underlying auditory overshadowing in the course of cross-modal processing and have implications on a variety of cognitive tasks that depend on cross-modal processing.

Visual perception is often conceptualized as the analysis of static images which are acquired during fixations. These images are then spatially decomposed into their basic components, which form the fundament of visual perception. Understanding these spatial mechanisms has been a central aim of pattern vision, and has led to a successful and widely adopted standard model of spatial vision. The spatial view on pattern vision, however, overlooks a key aspect of visual processing: the eyes are never still. Even during fixations, involuntary eye movements incessantly modulate the visual input. These eye movements challenge the assumption that visual processing can occur independently of motion. In recent years, empirical evidence has accumulated which suggests that fixational eye movements, particularly ocular drift, actively shape visual processing. Building on these findings, this thesis argues that ocular drift is essential to how the visual system encodes spatial structure, even in the absence of external motion. It calls for a shift from static to active, spatiotemporal models of pattern vision. To support this shift, it integrates computational modeling, psychophysics, and new experimental tools to explore how ocular drift influences edge and pattern perception. The first part of this thesis revisits foundational assumptions in spatial vision. In a first study, it presents a proof-of-concept model that extends a standard spatial vision model by ocular drift and temporal processing. The active model components facilitate edge extraction, but also reveal limitations in current datasets which cannot clearly distinguish between static and active accounts of pattern vision. In response, the next two studies introduce new software tools and a benchmark dataset that specifically target the spatial frequency selective mechanisms underlying pattern vision. Using this dataset, the fourth study explicitly contrasts spatial and active accounts of pattern vision. The results show that incorporating ocular drift improves predictions of human edge sensitivity and reveals that traditional models may rely on compensatory biases to account for the absence of these eye movements. The final study introduces a behavioral task in which participants trace edges in natural scenes. This approach enables the study of pattern vision in more naturalistic contexts while maintaining the analytical rigor of traditional psychophysics through signal detection theory. The resulting dataset supports both standard analyses and investigations into individual differences and the visual features that guide edge perception in real-world settings. Altogether, this thesis integrates insights from active perception into a mechanistically grounded framework of pattern vision. It redefines early visual processing as an active, embodied process shaped by the observer’s own movements. These findings challenge static models of early visual processes and advocate for a broader paradigm shift that places motion, context, and environmental interaction at the core of perception. Finally, it lays a foundation for future research into active models of vision, offering both theoretical direction and practical tools to study visual perception under more natural conditions.

Event Abstract Back to Event Detection of linear ego-acceleration from optic flow Freya Festl1, Fabian Recktenwald2, Chunrong Yuan2 and Hanspeter A. Mallot2* 1 University of Tübingen, Deptartment of Psychology, Germany 2 Universität Tübingen, Department of Biology, Germany Human observers are able to estimate various ego-motion parameters from optic flow, including rotation, translational heading, time to collision (TTC), time to passage (TTP), etc. The perception of linear ego-acceleration or deceleration, i.e. changes of translational velocity, is less well understood. While time-to-passage experiments indicate that ego-acceleration is neglected, subjects are able to keep their (perceived) speed constant under changing conditions, indicating that some sense of ego-acceleration or velocity change must be present. In this paper, we analyze the ego-acceleration perception and its relation to geometrical parameters of the environment using simulated flights through cylindrical and conic (narrowing or widening) corridors. Theoretical analysis shows that a logarithmic ego-acceleration parameter, called the acceleration rate rho, can be calculated from retinal acceleration measurements. This parameter is independent of the geometrical layout of the scene; if veridical ego-motion is known at some instant in time, acceleration rate allows to update ego-motion without further depth-velocity calibration. Results indicate, however, that subjects systematically confuse ego-acceleration with corridor narrowing and ego-deceleration with corridor widening, while veridically judging ego-acceleration in straight corridors. We conclude that judgments of ego-acceleration are based on first order retinal flow, and do not make use of acceleration rate or retinal acceleration. Acknowledgements The paper describes work performed at the Department of Biology, University of Tübingen. Additional support was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the Tübingen Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (Grant No 01GQ1002A) Keywords: egomotion perception, motion, Optic Flow, structure from motion, time to contact Conference: Bernstein Conference 2012, Munich, Germany, 12 Sep - 14 Sep, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Sensory processing and perception Citation: Festl F, Recktenwald F, Yuan C and Mallot HA (2012). Detection of linear ego-acceleration from optic flow. Front. Comput. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Bernstein Conference 2012. doi: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2012.55.00200 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 11 May 2012; Published Online: 12 Sep 2012. * Correspondence: Prof. Hanspeter A Mallot, Universität Tübingen, Department of Biology, Tübingen, 72076, Germany, hanspeter.mallot@uni-tuebingen.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Freya Festl Fabian Recktenwald Chunrong Yuan Hanspeter A Mallot Google Freya Festl Fabian Recktenwald Chunrong Yuan Hanspeter A Mallot Google Scholar Freya Festl Fabian Recktenwald Chunrong Yuan Hanspeter A Mallot PubMed Freya Festl Fabian Recktenwald Chunrong Yuan Hanspeter A Mallot Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

In sensory systems information is encoded by the activity of populations of neurons. To analyze the coding properties of neuronal populations sensory stimuli have usually been used that were much simpler than those encountered in real life. It has been possible only recently to stimulate visual interneurons of the blowfly with naturalistic visual stimuli reconstructed from eye movements measured during free flight. Therefore we now investigate with naturalistic optic flow the coding properties of a small neuronal population of identified visual interneurons in the blowfly, the so-called VS and HS neurons. These neurons are motion sensitive and directionally selective and are assumed to extract information about the animal's self-motion from optic flow. We could show that neuronal responses of VS and HS neurons are mainly shaped by the characteristic dynamical properties of the fly's saccadic flight and gaze strategy. Individual neurons encode information about both the rotational and the translational components of the animal's self-motion. Thus the information carried by individual neurons is ambiguous. The ambiguities can be reduced by considering neuronal population activity. The joint responses of different subpopulations of VS and HS neurons can provide unambiguous information about the three rotational and the three translational components of the animal's self-motion and also, indirectly, about the three-dimensional layout of the environment.

Mechanics of animal locomotion, vol. 11: Edited by R. McN. Alexander. Advances in Comparative Physiology, 304pp. 1992. Springer Verlag, Berlin. DM 168

Insect Vision: Controlling Actions through Optic Flow

Event Abstract Back to Event Modeling and simulation of retinal neurons and the neuroinformatics tools Yoshimi Kamiyama1* and Shiro Usui2 1 Aichi Prefectural University, Japan 2 RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan The retina transforms the light into nerve spikes which are carried by the optic nerve to the brain. The retina has been thought to be a window to the brain because of its accessibility and suitability for neuroscientific investigation. It is thought to be one of the few parts of the vertebrate brain where we can reasonably explain its purpose and how it works. The retina is an attractive model system for approaching the question of the information processing role of biological mechanisms of neurons. The physiology and anatomy of the retina are relatively well known. Physiological studies of the retina have uncovered a number of cellular and subcellular mechanisms such as phototransduction and the characteristics of the ion channels found in retinal neurons. Neuroanatomical studies have revealed the morphological principles govering the structure of the retina. The former data provide information about the functional role of ion channels in generating and shaping the light response of the retinal neurons. It is as yet impossible to provide a complete model of the retina. But it is now possible to identify some computational operations that the retina perfoms and to relate them to specific physiological mechanisms, on the basis of computational modeling work. Over the last decade, we have developed mathematical models of retinal neurons based on neurophysiological details. These models can reveal what happens if a particular ionic current is active or inactive. One can then ask what advantages are given on the visual system by having the particular class of ion channel present in the neuron. Here, we show the mathematical models of the retinal neurons, and demonstrate that the electircal responses are quantitatively accounted for by the models. The models we have developed provide a unified framework for the undestanding of the functional role of cellular mechanisms of retinal neurons and their integrative functions. In the present study, we analyzed the underlying mechanisms of a rod photoreceptor that behaves as a bandpass filter which has long been a mystery. We discovered that the kinetics of the calcium dependent ionic currents characterize the bandpass filtering of rod signals. We also developed a stochastic model of spike generation in retinal ganglion cells. The stochastic model showed precise and reliable spikes to randomly fluctuating current similar to those of experimental data. We found the spike timing was much influenced by the outward currents, not by the sodium current which riggers spikes. The simulation analysis with these models requires some software tools. We developed three software systems; (1) XML-based retinal neuron modeling language which stores not only mathematical models, but also all calculation conditions and improves model reproducibility, (2)Grid portal simulation environment which provides seamless access to computing resources over the network, (3)Realtime retinal neuron simulator with USB camera device for understanding the role of retinal neurons in visual information processing. These tools highly improved simulation efficiency for retinal modeling and simulation. 81b tn_07-29-2008-10-52_81b tn_81b 07-29-2008-10-52_81b Conference: Neuroinformatics 2008, Stockholm, Sweden, 7 Sep - 9 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Live Demonstrations Citation: Kamiyama Y and Usui S (2008). Modeling and simulation of retinal neurons and the neuroinformatics tools. Front. Neuroinform. Conference Abstract: Neuroinformatics 2008. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.11.2008.01.121 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Jul 2008; Published Online: 28 Jul 2008. * Correspondence: Yoshimi Kamiyama, Aichi Prefectural University, Aichi, Japan, usuishiro@riken.jp Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract Supplemental Data The Authors in Frontiers Yoshimi Kamiyama Shiro Usui Google Yoshimi Kamiyama Shiro Usui Google Scholar Yoshimi Kamiyama Shiro Usui PubMed Yoshimi Kamiyama Shiro Usui Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.