The POL-neurons in the optic lobe act as filters removing unnecessary or disturbing information and enhancing polarization contrast by a polarization-antagonism. There are three types of POL-neuron tuned to different e-vector orientation. We believe that e-vector orientation is coded by the activities of the three e-vector types of neuron (triplet code) in an analogous way as color is coded by the activities of three spectral types of photoreceptor.

POL-neurons in the central complex, a putative center of spatial orientation, differ in both their response properties and their e-vector tuning axes from the optic lobe neurons. These neurons are active at certain e-vector orientation only and their e-vector tuning axes are ungrouped ranging from 0° to 180°. Thus, these neurons behave in an analogous way as the "head direction cells" in the rat brain. We propose that central complex neurons in the cricket central complex (termed "compass neurons") encode e-vector orientation by a population code.

POL-neurons in the optic lobe
POL-neurons in the central complex