An open platform for visual stimulation of insects

Abstract

To study how the nervous system processes visual information, experimenters must record neural activity while delivering visual stimuli in a controlled fashion. In animals with a nearly panoramic field of view, such as flies, precise stimulation of the entire visual field is challenging. We describe a projector-based device for stimulation of the insect visual system under a microscope. The device is based on a bowl-shaped screen that provides a wide and nearly distortion-free field of view. It is compact, cheap, easy to assemble, and easy to operate using the included open-source software for stimulus generation. We validate the virtual reality system technically and demonstrate its capabilities in a series of experiments at two levels: the cellular, by measuring the membrane potential responses of visual interneurons; and the organismal, by recording optomotor and fixation behavior of Drosophila melanogaster in tethered flight. Our experiments reveal the importance of stimulating the visual system of an insect with a wide field of view, and we provide a simple solution to do so.