Animals, including humans, are constantly exposed to a wealth of sensory information as they move through the world. Their brains need to process what they see, hear, and smell, combine this information with their current needs and goals, and select an appropriate response—often in a split second. Although this ability is essential for survival, we do not understand how it is implemented in the nervous system. I am a neuroscientist trying to understand how the brain selects and controls flexible behaviour. I approach this problem from two angles: I study sensorimotor circuits, which transform sensory information into action, and modulatory systems, which adjust these circuits according to an animal’s current needs.
I primarily work in the fruit fly, Drosophila, because it is uniquely suited to addressing these questions: a powerful genetic toolkit allows us to manipulate neuronal activity with great precision; synapse-level maps—or connectomes—let us reconstruct complete circuits across the nervous system; and we can record from core neurons in behaving animals. Thus, we can analyse circuit structure, manipulate core neurons to establish their behavioural function, and measure how individual neurons encode sensory features and contribute to behavioural output. Our projects on neuromodulation focus on three systems whose functions are conserved across the animal kingdom: the insulin system, which is essential for energy metabolism; the dopamine system, which plays an important role in controlling movement and motivation; and the octopamine system, which is similar to the human adrenergic system and helps regulate arousal. Together with our work on sensorimotor circuits, these projects help us understand how internal states shape neural circuits to produce flexible, context-appropriate behaviour.
