Response latency of a motion-sensitive neuron in the fly visual system: dependence on stimulus parameters and physiological conditions.

The response latency of an identified motion-sensitive neuron in the blowfly visual system strongly depends on stimulus parameters. The latency decreases with increasing contrast and temporal frequency of a moving pattern, but changes only little when the pattern size and thus the number of activated inputs is increased. The latency does not only depend on visual stimuli, but is also affected by temperature changes and the age of the fly. Since response latencies cover a range of one order of magnitude, the latency changes are expected to be of relevance in visually guided orientation behaviour.