Optic flow in the natural habitats of zebrafish supports spatial biases in visual self-motion estimation

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.10.009
• Publication Date: 2022-11-02T14:38:17Z
• Authors: Emma Alexander; Lanya T. Cai; Sabrina Fuchs; Tim C. Hladnik; Yue Zhang; Venkatesh Subrama...; Nicholas C. Guilb...; Chinnian Vijayakumar; Muthukumarasamy A...; Scott A. Juntti; Tod R. Thiele; Aristides B. Arre...; Emily A. Cooper
• Keywords: Optical Flow

Animals benefit from knowing if and how they are moving. Across the animal kingdom, sensory information in form of optic flow over visual field is used to estimate self-motion. However, different species exhibit strong spatial biases use flow. Here, we show computationally that noisy natural environments favor systems extract spatially biased samples when estimating The performance associated with these biases, however, depends on interactions between environment animal's brain behavior. Using larval zebrafish as a model, recorded swimming trajectories habitat an omnidirectional camera mounted mechanical arm. An analysis fields suggests lateral regions lower most informative about speed. This pattern consistent recent findings optomotor responses preferentially driven by field, which extend behavioral results high-resolution spherical arena. Spatial optic-flow sampling likely pervasive because effective strategy for determining self-motion environments.