National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore 560065, India.
Biol Lett. 2022 Nov;18(11):20220199. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0199. Epub 2022 Nov 9.
In flying insects, head stabilization is an essential reflex that helps to reduce motion blur during fast aerial manoeuvres. This reflex is multimodal and requires the integration of visual and antennal mechanosensory feedback in hawkmoths, each operating as a negative-feedback-control loop. As in any negative-feedback system, the head stabilization system possesses inherent oscillatory dynamics that depend on the rate at which the sensorimotor components of the reflex operate. Consistent with this expectation, we observed small-amplitude oscillations in the head motion (or head wobble) of the oleander hawkmoth, which are accentuated when sensory feedback is aberrant. Here, we show that these oscillations emerge from the inherent dynamics of the multimodal reflex underlying gaze stabilization, and that the amplitude of head wobble is a function of both the visual feedback and antennal mechanosensory feedback from the Johnston's organs. Our data support the hypothesis that head wobble results from a multimodal, dynamically stabilized reflex loop that mediates head positioning.
在飞行昆虫中，头部稳定是一种基本反射，有助于减少快速空中机动时的运动模糊。这种反射是多模态的，需要整合视觉和触角机械感觉反馈，在鹰蛾中，每个反馈都作为一个负反馈控制回路运行。与任何负反馈系统一样，头部稳定系统具有内在的振荡动力学，这取决于反射的传感器-运动组件的运行速度。与这一预期一致，我们观察到头部运动（或头部摆动）的小幅度振荡，当感觉反馈异常时，这种振荡会加剧。在这里，我们表明这些振荡源自眼球稳定的多模态反射的固有动力学，并且头部摆动的幅度是视觉反馈和来自约翰斯顿器官的触角机械感觉反馈的函数。我们的数据支持这样的假设，即头部摆动是由介导头部定位的多模态、动态稳定的反射环引起的。
