Objective
The brain of a fly is capable of steering the animal through a complex environment at high relative speeds, avoiding stationary obstacles and moving predators. Because it is relatively easy to study how flies do this at several levels, from the behavioral to the cellular, fly vision has long been recognized as an ideal system to address a fundamental question in neuroscience- how does the distributed activity of neurons orchestrate animal-environment interactions to result in successful coordinated behavior? This work addresses this basic question with two related studies. The first concerns higher levels of visual processing and behavior. Do flies build a neural representation of nearby objects or, alternatively, is flight governed by a direct coupling of visual input into motor commands? The second identifies specific neurons responsible for visual guidance behaviors.
This work involves the establishment of a new research activity in the EU by a Principal Investigator who is moving from a third country (the US) into the EU. It uses a unique high-throughput, virtual reality free flight arena in which flies are tracked in realtime by a computer vision system. With this technology, physically unmanipulated and unrestrained flies are automatically and repeatedly presented with arbitrary visual stimuli projected on the arena walls and floor. Thousands of digitized 3D flight trajectories are gathered, and behavioral experiments using this system will be combined with targeted genetic manipulation of the nervous system and analyzed to reveal the magnitude and reliability of effects. This will be accomplished by using molecular genetic techniques to selectively perturb individually identified neurons in the brain and measuring the effect on flight control in response to precisely specified visual stimuli. Thus, by utilizing controlled stimulus conditions and measuring behavioral responses in detail, the results will show the contribution of individual neurons to behavior.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciences biological sciences neurobiology
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology genetic engineering
- natural sciences computer and information sciences artificial intelligence computer vision
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software software applications virtual reality
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2011-StG_20101109
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Host institution
79098 Freiburg
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.