TY  - JOUR
A1  - Beetz, M. Jerome
A1  - Kraus, Christian
A1  - el Jundi, Basil
T1  - Neural representation of goal direction in the monarch butterfly brain
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Neural processing of a desired moving direction requires the continuous comparison between the current heading and the goal direction. While the neural basis underlying the current heading is well-studied, the coding of the goal direction remains unclear in insects. Here, we used tetrode recordings in tethered flying monarch butterflies to unravel how a goal direction is represented in the insect brain. While recording, the butterflies maintained robust goal directions relative to a virtual sun. By resetting their goal directions, we found neurons whose spatial tuning was tightly linked to the goal directions. Importantly, their tuning was unaffected when the butterflies changed their heading after compass perturbations, showing that these neurons specifically encode the goal direction. Overall, we here discovered invertebrate goal-direction neurons that share functional similarities to goal-direction cells reported in mammals. Our results give insights into the evolutionarily conserved principles of goal-directed spatial orientation in animals.
KW  - animal behaviour
KW  - navigation
KW  - neuroscience
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-358073
VL  - 14
ER  -