“How a Fly Sees the World: Optogenetics, Systems ID, and Optophysiology of Visual Flight Control in Drosophila”

Mark Frye, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology and Department of Neurobiology
University of California, Los Angeles

Flies have remarkably high performance visual systems that operate at the physical and physiological limits of seeing their world as they fly through it. Flies use the pattern of panoramic optic flow to stabilize their heading, while simultaneously discriminating salient small features to pursue or escape. My lab integrates biological and engineering approaches to understand the functional algorithms and neural circuitry underlying the hybrid control of optomotor visual stability and object pursuit during flight, and how these visual processes are modulated by context such as an attractive odor.