Ronja Bigge

Many animals, including humans, strongly rely on their visual sense. Vision provides highly multidimensional information about the natural environment, which makes it suitable to control a wide range of behaviors. However, this complex sensory input requires a high amount of flexibility in the visual system. Especially insects, due to their limited neural capacities, need to streamline the visual input signals. Parallel spatial filters help to process the complex visual information, by focusing only on relevant areas of the visual field, or by filtering different spatial features in the same visual area. In my PhD, I use hawkmoths as a model to study different aspects of visual processing:

I investigate spatial processing from the natural visual inputs to the behavioral outputs, including the neural processing and its underlying anatomical structure. Ultimately, I combine a wide range of methods to gain a holistic understanding of how spatial processing in the insect visual system helps to extract visual information out of a complex visual world.

First, by quantifying the image statistics of natural visual sceneries, I aim to understand the natural inputs to the visual system. Second, I use intracellular recordings to investigate how visual information is processed in the insect brain and which neurons are involved in spatial processing. Third, I study the anatomical fine structure to understand the neuronal basis underlying their functions. Finally, I use computational modelling to simulate a cell’s response to different spatial stimuli, based on the morphology and connectivity of individual neurons.       
Ultimately, by combining these different aspects of visual processing, I aim to reveal how spatial processing in the insect visual system supports natural behavior in a complex visual world.