ORIENTATION-SENSITIVE NEURONS IN THE BRAIN OF THE HONEY-BEE (APIS-MELLIFERA)

Recent behavioural experiments have shown that bees are able to distin guish vertically presented patterns with orientation cues, although th e locations of areas of black are randomized, To discriminate between two orientations, the bees must possess more than one orientation-sens itive neuron type, Therefore, the aim is to search for different types of orientation-sensitive cells of the honey bee, and measure their re ceptive field, velocity sensitivity and contrast sensitivity, Orientat ion-sensitive cells with two different types of orientation tuning-cur ves were recorded intracellularly in the mid-brain of the honey bee wh en the stimulus was a narrow bar (bar width = 5 degrees). These cells are sensitive to bar movement within their large receptive field, whic h covers the visual field of one eye. They are quite distinct from the well-known directional motion detectors, The contrast sensitivity of the orientation-sensitive cells recorded in this study corresponds to results from behavioural experiments, The velocity-sensitivity curves of the orientation-sensitive cells differ from those of the direction- sensitive cells, Measurements of orientation sensitivity and contrast sensitivity when the stimulus is a wide bar (bar width = 10 degrees), done in different eye regions, suggest that each orientation-sensitive cell receives visual signals from an array of orientational subunits within its receptive held, The correspondence between these physiologi cal results and the results of recent behavioural experiments are disc ussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.