Moore Scholar BBE Seminar
Differences in behavior between male and female animals provide a powerful model to understand the genetic and neural circuit basis of behavior. Sex pheromones that trigger different behaviors in male and female animals have been identified in animals from worms to elephants. In a few well-studied cases including mice and flies, the pheromone is known to bind and activate a specific odorant receptor in both sexes. If the pheromone turns on sensory neurons in both sexes, why should the animals behave differently? It is likely that there are differences in neural circuits deeper in the brain.
I will present work from my group that describes, for the first time in any animal, a bidirectional neural circuit switch; this reroutes pheromone information to one set of target neurons in female brains and a different group in males. In addition to establishing the circuit basis of this switch, we have also uncovered some of the genetic logic that determines its male or female state.
These functional studies began with fine scale mapping of olfactory circuits in the fly brain. I will also present some new technology that we have developed to label and map neurons in the brain, to measure the similarity between different neurons and to use this information to search and organize a database of more than 15,000 neurons. These approaches developed in the fly, may be portable to other systems including fish or mice.
About Dr. Jefferis
Dr. Jefferis will visit campus as a Moore Scholar from January 19th to February 19th, 2015. His work centers on the organization and function of the drosophila olfactory system, with a special emphasis on circuits that mediate pheromonal control of innate behaviors such as courtship. Dr. Jefferis has broad interests in molecular genetics, neural development, neural circuit organization and function, neurophysiology, sensory processing, and computerized analysis of neuroanatomical data.