A naturalistic perspective on optic flow processing in the fly

Optic flow offers a rich source of information about an organism’s environment. Flies, for instance, are thought to make use of motion vision to control and stabilise their course during acrobatic airborne manoeuvres. How these computations are implemented in neural hardware and how such circuits cope with the visual complexity of natural scenes, however, remain open questions. This talk outlines some of the progress we have made in unraveling the computational substrate underlying optic flow processing in Drosophila. In particular, I will focus on our efforts to connect neural mechanisms and real-world demands via task-driven modelling.