Global versus local adaptation in fly motion-sensitive neurons

Flies, like humans, experience a well-known consequence of adaptation to visual motion, the waterfall illusion. Direction-selective neurons in the fly lobula plate permit a detailed analysis of the mechanisms responsible for motion adaptation and their function. Most of these neurons are spatially non-opponent, they sum responses to motion in the preferred direction across their entire receptive field, and adaptation depresses responses by subtraction and by reducing contrast gain. When we adapted a small area of the receptive field to motion in its anti-preferred direction, we discovered that directional gain at unadapted regions was enhanced. This novel phenomenon shows that neuronal responses to the direction of stimulation in one area of the receptive field are dynamically adjusted to the history of stimulation both within and outside that area.