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Department Seminar

2 March

2017.01.05 | Zitta Glattrup Nygaard

Date Thu 02 Mar
Time 12:00 13:00
Location Small Anatomy auditorium (1231-424)

12.00-12.45

Speaker: Anne Philipsborn

What can a fly’s love life teach us about circuit neuroscience?

12.45-13.00

Discussion

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Abstract
Generation and control of appropriate motor behavior is the ultimate function of the nervous system. Understanding motor pattern generation, action selection and higher order organization of complex motor behavior is of great interest to basic circuit neuroscience as well as biomedicine. We use Drosophila to uncover mechanisms and principles of motor control, with reproductive behavior as a model system.

I will present recent results from three ongoing projects in laboratory: neuromuscular control in a bifunctional motor system, state dependent action selection and sex-specific acoustic communication during reproduction.

How can male flies use a small set of steering muscles to perform stunning flight maneuvers as well as a precisely patterned wing song tuned to seduce the female?

How can the activation of wing song neurons lead sometimes to motor action, sometimes not, depending on the behavioral context the male is experiencing?

How do sex differences in the nervous system lead to two different acoustic signals, produced by males and females at different moments of the mating ritual?

Apart from trying to answer these questions, I’ll give a brief overview over the newest genetic techniques.

Best regards

The Biomedical Seminar Organizing Committee

Camilla Gustafsen
Yonglun Luo (Alun)

 

 

Seminar, Research, PhD students, Department of Biomedicine, Department of Biomedicine, Technical / administrative staff, Academic staff