Dragonfly Brains Predict the Path of Their Prey
New research from Australia and Sweden has shown how a dragonfly’s brain anticipates the movement of its prey, enabling it to hunt successfully. This knowledge could lead to innovations in fields such as robot vision.
An article published today in the journal eLife by researchers at the University of Adelaide and Lund University has offered more insights into the complexity of brain processing in dragonflies than has previously been understood.
“Until now, the international research community has primarily considered the capabilities of mammals, such as humans, for investigating how animals can predict where a moving object will be in the near future,” says project partner Dr Steven Wiederman from the University of Adelaide’s Adelaide Medical School.
“Understandably, mammals in many ways are more complex organisms than insects, but with each discovery we’re finding that dragonflies have keen visual and neural processes that could be ideal for translating into technological advances,” he says.
“A predictive focus of gain modulation encodes target trajectories in insect vision” by Steven D Wiederman, Joseph M Fabian, James R Dunbier, and David C O’Carroll in eLife. Published online July 25 2017 doi:10.7554/eLife.26478
This is the dragonfly Somatochlora flavomaculata. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to David O’Carroll, Lund University.
