Department of Neurobiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
Neuron. 2011 Jan 27;69(2):345-58. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.12.025.
Migrating monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) use a time-compensated sun compass to navigate from eastern North America to their overwintering grounds in central Mexico. Here we describe the neuronal layout of those aspects of the butterfly's central complex likely to establish part of the internal sun compass and find them highly homologous to those of the desert locust. Intracellular recordings from neurons in the monarch sun compass network reveal responses tuned to specific E-vector angles of polarized light, as well as azimuth-dependent responses to unpolarized light, independent of spectral composition. The neural responses to these two stimuli in individual neurons are mediated through different regions of the compound eye. Moreover, these dual responses are integrated to create a consistent representation of skylight cues in the sun compass throughout the day. The results advance our understanding of how ambiguous sensory signals are processed by the brain to elicit a robust behavioral response.
迁徙的黑脉金斑蝶（Danaus plexippus）利用时间补偿的太阳罗盘从北美东部导航到它们在墨西哥中部的越冬地。在这里，我们描述了蝴蝶中与内部太阳罗盘建立部分相关的中央复合体的神经元布局，并发现它们与沙漠蝗高度同源。从黑脉金斑蝶太阳罗盘网络中的神经元进行的细胞内记录显示，对偏振光的特定 E-矢量角度有响应，以及对非偏振光的方位角依赖性响应，而与光谱组成无关。单个神经元中对这两种刺激的神经反应是通过复眼的不同区域介导的。此外，这两种双重反应被整合在一起，以便在整个白天的太阳罗盘中创建天光线索的一致表示。这些结果提高了我们对大脑如何处理模糊的感觉信号以引起强大的行为反应的理解。
