image: This image shows a male crab Neohelice granualta. The two widely separated eyes are at the tip of movable eyestalks. Within the eyestalks are the optic lobes and other brain centers where binocular motions-sensitive neurons were found. view more
Credit: Daniela Prina
Crabs combine the input from their two eyes early on in their brain's visual pathway to track a moving object, finds new research published in JNeurosci. This study of adult male crabs from Argentina's Atlantic coast provides insight into the visual world of a crustacean.
The widely spaced eyes and visually guided behaviors of the crab Neohelice granulata suggest this highly social predator may compute visual parameters of moving targets by combining input from both eyes, but it is unclear where and how the two sources of visual information are merged and processed.
By manipulating the animals' visual field and recording the activity of motion-sensitive lobula giant neurons while a moving bar was presented on computer screens, Daniel Tomsic and colleagues demonstrate that these cells perform complex integrations of visual information from both eyes. Such binocular visual processing may be important for the species' ability to capture prey and interact with other crabs. The study shows the amenability of these animals for exploring neurocomputations underlying binocular behavioral tasks.
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Article: Binocular neuronal processing of object motion in an arthropod
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3641-17.2018
Corresponding author: Daniel Tomsic (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina), tomsic@fbmc.fcen.uba.ar
About JNeurosci
JNeurosci, the Society for Neuroscience's first journal, was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.
About The Society for Neuroscience
The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 37,000 members in more than 90 countries and over 130 chapters worldwide.