Space, Flies, Memory
Graduate Student Recruitment Lecture
Event Details
- Type
- Friday Lecture Series
- Speaker(s)
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Gaby Maimon, Ph.D., professor and head, Laboratory of Integrative Brain Function, The Rockefeller University; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Speaker bio(s)
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Over the past decade, there has been notable progress in delineating the functional logic of the insect central complex. This central-brain region functions as a microcomputer that calculates angles and two-dimensional vectors important for navigational behavior. In this talk, Dr. Maimon will focus on his lab's emerging understanding of how working memories are built, stored, and impact behavior in this system. How these insights were made in Drosophila suggests a roadmap for reaching a similar level of understanding in mammalian cognition down the road.
Gaby Maimon has a longstanding interest in cognitive brain processes. As a graduate student, he aimed to better understand how actions are initiated via neurophysiological recordings in awake, behaving monkeys. As a postdoc, Maimon transitioned to studying flies, where he developed a preparation that allows one to record the electrical activity of Drosophila neurons during locomotor (tethered flight or walking) behavior for the first time. His lab uses this preparation––alongside other experiments at the molecular, anatomical, and behavioral levels––to understand how fly brains calculate and remember the value of quantitative variables, particularly navigational variables, and use these to guide behavior. The goal of this work is to develop a deeper, cellular and molecular level, understanding of higher brain functions. Such an understanding in a tiny brain could provide a roadmap for more complete understandings of cognitive brain functions in larger brains, such as our own.
- Open to
- Tri-Institutional