The researchers say their new findings, published in Nature, should allow for many new discoveries on the biology of animal eye movements more generally. Using seemingly simple organisms like the fruit fly, in which advanced methods are available to study how brain circuits give rise to behavior, Maimon’s lab seeks to understand general principles of how brains produce goal-directed actions. “It is super interesting that fruit flies move their retinas because it suggests there could be a whole other set of features yet to be discovered that the visual system uses to help gather and process information,” says Lisa Fenk, a who conducted this study as a postdoctoral scholar in the lab of Gaby Maimon at The Rockefeller University and is currently a group leader in the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence. But a new study shows that fruit flies have evolved a different strategy to adjust their vision without moving their heads-they move the retinas inside of their eyes. Insects don’t have this luxury because their eyes are fixed firmly to their heads. Without microsaccades, the image of the teacup would soon start to fade, in the same way your nose may go blind to a constant odor. In fact, these jitters are the reason you continue to see the teacup at all-they introduce just enough variety in the light patterns on your eyes to prevent your visual neurons from completely adapting to what they’re looking at. You may think that you’re keeping your eyes still, but you’re not: Your eyes are frequently moving unbeknownst to you, making tiny involuntary jitters called microsaccades. Pick an object in front of you-a teacup, for example-and fix your gaze on it. The muscle is innervated by a retinal motor neuron (green) that controls retinal movements. A side view of a fly eye with the rubber-band like retinal muscle in red.
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