QBI Seminar: Colour vision in mantis shrimps: understanding one of the most complex visual systems in the world.
Event Details
- Date:
- Wednesday, 13 May 2015 - Wednesday, 13 May 2015
- Time:
- 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Room:
- QBI Level 7 Auditorium
- UQ Location:
- Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)
- URL:
- http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Ms Deirdre Wilson
- Phone:
- 66300
- Email:
- d.wilson5@uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Queensland Brain Institute
Event Description
- Full Description:
- Hanne Thoen
Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland
Title: Colour vision in mantis shrimps: understanding one of the most complex visual systems in the world.
Abstract: The complexity of the stomatopod (mantis shrimp) visual system with its twelve colour channels and ability to see both linear and circular polarised light has long puzzled scientists. Results from behavioural experiments shows that despite the large number of colour receptors stomatopods have surprisingly poor colour discrimination, suggesting that they process colour differently from the conventional opponent system used by other animals. Using an interval decoding strategy combined with scanning eye movements would allow them to perceive colour based on the peak sensitivity of the most responsive cell. This in turn would allow rapid and reliable colour recognition, but at the cost of fine discrimination. Interestingly, this ‘winner-takes-all’ system shows computational parallels with the way the inferior temporal cortex (IT) of primates encodes colour and is not the first time such evolved convergence has been suggested between the visual systems of arthropods and mammals. We are now identifying neuronal pathways through the stomatopod optic neuropils, confirming and describing the retinotopic connections of the colour and polarisation information. Laterally extending collaterals of neurons representing the eye's equatorial chromatic channels, which project from the medulla to the lobula, are now recognized as intersecting the lobula parallel relays from the achromatic upper and lower retina. This arrangement suggests information from the chromatic receptors is integrated with information from achromatic neurons in the lobula before projecting into optic glomeruli of the protocerebrum.
Directions to UQ
- Google Map:
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- Directions:
- St Lucia Campus | Gatton campus.
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