Philip Hubbard @philiphubbard@qoto.org

Packages for the Unity game engine, emphasizing animal studies in VR. - GitHub - JaneliaSciComp/janelia-unity-toolkit: Packages for the Unity game engine, emphasizing animal studies in VR.

Many animals rely on a representation of head direction for flexible, goal-directed navigation. In insects, a compass-like head direction representation is maintained in a conserved brain region called the central complex. This head direction representation is updated by self-motion information and by tethering to sensory cues in the surroundings through a plasticity mechanism. However, under natural settings, some of these sensory cues may temporarily disappear—for example, when clouds hide the sun—and prominent landmarks at different distances from the insect may move across the animal’s field of view during translation, creating potential conflicts for a neural compass. We used two-photon calcium imaging in head-fixed Drosophila behaving in virtual reality to monitor the fly’s compass during navigation in immersive naturalistic environments with approachable local landmarks. We found that the fly’s compass remains stable even in these settings by tethering to available global cues, likely preserving the animal’s ability to perform compass-driven behaviors such as maintaining a constant heading. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Looking for a wealth of challenging assignments that will satisfy your thirst for cutting-edge science, leverage and build on your coding skills, and launch your career in Computational Science? You may find a perfect fit in Janelia’s Scientific Computing Associates (SCA) program. Program Highlights Provides an alternative to the classical scientific career (PhD student or

Generates neuroscience videos from high-level descriptions using Blender or VVDViewer. - connectome-neuprint/neuVid