Recent studies of the Central Complex in the brain of the fruit fly have identified neurons with activity that tracks the animal’s heading direction. These neurons are part of a neuronal circuit with dynamics resembling those of a ring attractor. The homologous circuit in other insects has similar topographic structure but with significant structural and connectivity differences. We model the connectivity patterns of two insect species to investigate the effect of these differences on the dynamics of the circuit. We illustrate that the circuit found in locusts can also operate as a ring attractor but differences in the inhibition pattern enable the fruit fly circuit to respond faster to heading changes while additional recurrent connections render the locust circuit more tolerant to noise. Our findings demonstrate that subtle differences in neuronal projection patterns can have a significant effect on circuit performance and illustrate the need for a comparative approach in neuroscience.

中文翻译：

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两种昆虫的头部方向电路

最近对果蝇大脑中的中央复合体的研究已经确定了具有跟踪动物航向方向的活动的神经元。这些神经元是神经元回路的一部分，其动力学类似于环形吸引子的动力学。其他昆虫的同源回路具有相似的地形结构，但具有显着的结构和连接差异。我们对两种昆虫物种的连接模式进行建模，以研究这些差异对电路动力学的影响。我们说明在蝗虫中发现的电路也可以作为环吸引子运行，但抑制模式的差异使果蝇电路能够更快地响应航向变化，而额外的循环连接使蝗虫电路更能容忍噪声。