A Machine With a Fly's-Eye View

Abstract

Watch a house fly dart through a kitchen, navigating around obstacles at top speed, and you may not be surprised to learn that this blight of homemakers is a favorite of neurobiologists. For more than 30 years, they have measured brain activity and movement in tethered living flies to learn how the tiny fly brain processes fast-changing visual information and turns it into flight commands. More recently, they have used computer simulations to try out their theories on how these processes work. Now, scientists have a new tool that may help them unravel the secrets of a fly's agility: an analog electronic circuit that models a key part of the fly's visual system and is built into a rudimentary robot so that it can interact with the real world.