The brain of the fly - a high-speed computer

The brain of the fly - a high-speed computer: "To examine how the brains of fruit flies process motion, the neurobiologists presented the insects with moving stripe patterns on a light-diode screen. The nerve cells in the flies' brains react to these LED light impulses by becoming active, thus causing the luminance of the indicator molecules to change. Although TN-XXL's luminance changes are much higher than that of former indicator molecules, it took quite some time to capture this comparatively small amount of light and to separate it from the LED-light impulse. After puzzling over this for a while, however, Dierk Reiff solved the problem by synchronizing the 2-photon-laser microscope with the LED-screen at a tolerance of merely a few microseconds. The TN-XXL signal could subsequently be separated from the LED-light and selectively measured using the 2-photon-microscope."