Supplementary Figure 6: Walking-specific signals are independent of vision, are not coupled to the movement of antennae or halteres, and do not depend on the synaptic activity of leg mechanosensory cells.
From: A faithful internal representation of walking movements in the Drosophila visual system
(a) Walking velocity tuning for the recorded HS cell shown in Fig. 1e. PDmotor and NDmotor are the cell’s preferred and null turning direction of the fly (see main text). (b) Walking velocity tuning map for the population of HS cells recorded from blind (norpA) flies (N=9 cells). (c) Walking velocity tuning maps for the population of HS cells recorded from flies with antennae and halteres waxed (N=11 cells, right and left-side HS cells were pooled, see Methods). (d) Left, walking velocity tuning maps for the population of HS cells recorded from flies with leg mechanosensory cells expressing tetanus toxin to disrupt their synaptic activity (N=8 cells). Right, walking velocity maps of parental control flies with functional synaptic activity in leg mechanosensory cells (N=7 cells). (e) Top, paths of freely walking experimental (red, flies with leg mechanosensory cells expressing tetanus toxin, TNT) or control flies (black). Bottom, zoomed-in view to highlight the straightness of the paths of the walking flies. (f) Probability distributions (mean±SD) of the straightness of walking paths in experimental (red) and control (black) flies (see Methods). (g) Mean path straightness for experimental (red) and control (black) flies. For straightness analysis: 13 control flies, mean±SD: 0.87±0.03; 15 experimental flies, mean±SD: 0.71±0.07, ***,P< 0.0001, Z=4.38, Wilcoxon’s rank-sum test. (h) Probability distributions (mean±SD) of walking speed in experimental (red) and control (black) flies. For walking velocity analysis: 13 control flies, mean±SD: 11.5±1.9 mm/s; 15 experimental flies, mean±SD: 9.6±1.5 mm/s, P<0.01, Z=2.63, Wilcoxon’s rank-sum test.
