My new paper is out!

I just checked, and it looks like my paper on central complex visual responses during flight has been out since Wednesday! Here is the link to it on the Journal of Neurophysiology website:

http://jn.physiology.org/content/early/2013/10/04/jn.00593.2013.long

and here is the link to it on pubmed:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24108792

In it we report responses in the ExFl1 (aka F1) neurons in the ventral-most layer of the fan-shaped body. They respond with increased activity to front-to-back motion of stripes or other types of progressive optic flow while the animal is flying. While it is quiescent, however, the cells are unresponsive to identical stimuli. We used both two-photon calcium imaging and patch-clamp electrophysiology to measure the neuronal responses. Hope you enjoy it! Below are some additional images related to the work:

This is a schematic based on a single dye-filled neuron showing the position of ExFl1 neurons with respect to other central complex neuropils.

This is a view of the CAD model of the 2-photon rig that I used to conduct the imaging experiments The camera (top right) views a mirror that reflects an image of the fly, so that I can monitor its wing stroke amplitudes. The objective views the fly head from the posterior direction. The blue LED array allows me to show arbitrary visual stimuli to the fly. I can also deliver gentle air puffs via the tube below the fly to initiate flight.

I will post some videos on the lab website and vimeo.