Abstract
Insects offer highly accessible model systems for the study of neural integration and the design of circuits underlying compensatory and voluntary orbital movement. One advantage of such circuitry is that it is simpler in design than in an animal that can move its head and eyes separately. The two eyes of an insect are part of its exoskeleton and their major excursions in the horizontal and vertical planes are conjugate. This chapter tackles the skeletal and neuromuscular organization of the head-neck system in Calliphora erythrocephala, outlines its major sensory neurons and interneurons, and predicts the functional organization of the system by connecting the organization of retinitopic visual neurons to specific neck muscle pathways.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | The Head-Neck Sensory Motor System |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780199847198 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780195068207 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 22 2012 |
Keywords
- Calliphora erythrocephala
- Exoskeleton
- Head-neck system
- Insects
- Sensory neurons
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Neuroscience