Jornal de Neurociências e Pesquisa Clínica

Fly Brain – A High Speed Computer

Mitsuyo Kakuta

Neurobiologists have succeeded in singling out the response of individual cells in fly brains to specific movement stimuli. This breakthrough in motion vision research could lead to better understanding the motion detector systems in the fly brains and specific roles of individual cells within the neural network. The minute brains of flies process visual movements in only fractions of a second. Just how the brain of the fly manages to perceive motion with such speed and precision is predicted quite accurately by a mathematical model. The minute brains of these aeronautic acrobats process visual movements in only fractions of a second. Just how the brain of the fly manages to perceive motion with such speed and precision is predicted quite accurately by a mathematical model. However, even after 50 years of research, it remains a mystery as to how nerve cells are actually interconnected in the brain of the fly.