Skip Navigation

Neural Circuits for Adaptive Behaviors

Loading video...

547 Views

Air date: Monday, December 12, 2016, 12:00:00 PM
Time displayed is Eastern Time, Washington DC Local
Views: Total views: 547 (25 Live, 522 On-demand)
Category: Neuroscience
Runtime: 00:56:02
Description: NIH Neuroscience Series Seminar

All animals exhibit stereotyped behavioral responses to certain sensory cues. These innate behaviors reflect the activation of genetically determined neural circuits selected over the course of evolution to ensure robust responses to sensory stimuli critical to survival and reproduction. However, to flexibly adapt to a dynamic and often unpredictable sensory environment, animals must also learn to modify innate behavioral responses based on prior experience. These learned behaviors are mediated by neural circuits that adapt much more rapidly, within an individual lifetime, to allow each animal to appropriately respond to its unique sensory experiences. The Ruta lab is interested in delineating the distinct neural circuits and computations that underlie innate and learned behaviors, and in revealing circuits that can be modified through evolution or individual experience to generate novel behavioral adaptations.

The Ruta lab examines circuit organization, function, evolution, and plasticity in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, an animal that displays a rich repertoire of innate and learned behaviors governed by a brain of only approximately 100,000 neurons. A goal of the lab is to exploit the numerical simplicity of the fly’s nervous system to trace neural circuits from the detection of sensory cues all the way through to implementation of a motor response. By characterizing these extended neural processing pathways, Dr. Ruta hopes to reveal conserved circuit mechanisms that translate sensation into action. Areas of current focus include revealing the stereotyped pheromone-responsive circuits that enable a male to choose an appropriate prospective mate and the flexible circuits that allow a fly to impart meaning and contextualize a rich array of other olfactory experiences. Dr. Ruta and her colleagues use a variety of technical approaches to reveal and probe neural circuits, including novel optical tracing techniques, intracellular and extracellular electrophysiological recordings, and functional calcium imaging. These anatomic and functional methods are combined with quantitative behavioral assays in both free and tethered animals to allow for simultaneous measurement of neural activity and behavioral output.

Dr. Ruta is also interested in considering how sensation is converted to action at the molecular level. All olfactory behaviors in the fly, whether innate or learned, are initiated through the same molecular recognition events: the binding of volatile chemical cues to odorant receptors expressed in peripheral sensory neurons. Odorant receptors in insects, unlike in mammals, are thought to function as heteromeric ion channels. To begin to reveal the mechanism that couples the binding of odorant ligands to ion flux in this large and diverse family of membrane proteins, the Ruta lab is performing biochemical, electrophysiological, and structural studies on insect odorant receptors. The aim is to provide insight into the mechanism of odorant signaling in insects and to lay the foundation for the development of novel strategies to prevent the transmission of insect-borne diseases.

For more information go to https://neuroscience.nih.gov/neuroseries/Home
NLM Title: Neural circuits for adaptive behaviors / Vanessa Ruta.
Author: Ruta, Vanessa.
National Institutes of Health (U.S.),
Publisher:
Abstract: (CIT): NIH Neuroscience Series Seminar All animals exhibit stereotyped behavioral responses to certain sensory cues. These innate behaviors reflect the activation of genetically determined neural circuits selected over the course of evolution to ensure robust responses to sensory stimuli critical to survival and reproduction. However, to flexibly adapt to a dynamic and often unpredictable sensory environment, animals must also learn to modify innate behavioral responses based on prior experience. These learned behaviors are mediated by neural circuits that adapt much more rapidly, within an individual lifetime, to allow each animal to appropriately respond to its unique sensory experiences. The Ruta lab is interested in delineating the distinct neural circuits and computations that underlie innate and learned behaviors, and in revealing circuits that can be modified through evolution or individual experience to generate novel behavioral adaptations. The Ruta lab examines circuit organization, function, evolution, and plasticity in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, an animal that displays a rich repertoire of innate and learned behaviors governed by a brain of only approximately 100,000 neurons. A goal of the lab is to exploit the numerical simplicity of the fly's nervous system to trace neural circuits from the detection of sensory cues all the way through to implementation of a motor response. By characterizing these extended neural processing pathways, Dr. Ruta hopes to reveal conserved circuit mechanisms that translate sensation into action. Areas of current focus include revealing the stereotyped pheromone-responsive circuits that enable a male to choose an appropriate prospective mate and the flexible circuits that allow a fly to impart meaning and contextualize a rich array of other olfactory experiences. Dr. Ruta and her colleagues use a variety of technical approaches to reveal and probe neural circuits, including novel optical tracing techniques, intracellular and extracellular electrophysiological recordings, and functional calcium imaging. These anatomic and functional methods are combined with quantitative behavioral assays in both free and tethered animals to allow for simultaneous measurement of neural activity and behavioral output. Dr. Ruta is also interested in considering how sensation is converted to action at the molecular level. All olfactory behaviors in the fly, whether innate or learned, are initiated through the same molecular recognition events: the binding of volatile chemical cues to odorant receptors expressed in peripheral sensory neurons. Odorant receptors in insects, unlike in mammals, are thought to function as heteromeric ion channels. To begin to reveal the mechanism that couples the binding of odorant ligands to ion flux in this large and diverse family of membrane proteins, the Ruta lab is performing biochemical, electrophysiological, and structural studies on insect odorant receptors. The aim is to provide insight into the mechanism of odorant signaling in insects and to lay the foundation for the development of novel strategies to prevent the transmission of insect-borne diseases.
Subjects: Adaptation, Physiological
Drosophila melanogaster
Mushroom Bodies--physiology
Olfactory Pathways--physiology
Publication Types: Lecture
Webcast
 
NLM Classification: WL 314
NLM ID: 101698568
CIT Live ID: 19798
Permanent link: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=19798

The server returned an invalid or unrecognized response