Jessica Cande, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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Event Details
  • Date/Time:
    • Thursday February 4, 2016 - Friday February 5, 2016
      3:00 pm - 2:59 pm
  • Location: Georgia Tech, EBB 1005
  • Phone: (404) 894-3700
  • URL:
  • Email:
  • Fee(s):
    N/A
  • Extras:
Contact

If you have questions about logistics or would like to set up an appointment with the speaker, please contact the School of Biology's administrative office at bio-admin@biology.gatech.edu.

Summaries

Summary Sentence: Jessica Cande, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Full Summary: Abstract:How do neural circuits evolve to produce new behaviors? Several decades of research in the field of evolution and development have shown us how gene regulatory networks can evolve to produce different animal morphologies. However, when the output of a gene network is behavior, rather than anatomy, we are almost completely in the dark. What kinds of genes and mutations contribute to behavioral evolution? Does change occur through a small number of genes of large effect, or through many quantitative loci? Does it occur at the level of developmental transcription factors capable of re-wiring entire neural networks, or by subtly altering the activity of conserved neural circuits? Innate male courtship in fruit flies is relatively simple, stereotyped, controlled by a defined set of neurons and evolves rapidly, making it an ideal system to study this problem. In my seminar, I will discuss how we are leveraging the increasing power of the whole Drosophila subgroup as a genetically tractable system to understand how the male courtship neural network has evolved using a variety of approaches, such as transferring candidate loci between species, quantitative genetic mapping and functional assays of neural activity in multiple species.

From genes to neural circuits to behavior: the evolution of innate male courtship in Drosophila species

Additional Information

In Campus Calendar
No
Groups

School of Biological Sciences

Invited Audience
Undergraduate students, Faculty/Staff, Graduate students
Categories
Seminar/Lecture/Colloquium
Keywords
Jessica Cande, School of Biology Seminar, Todd Streelman
Status
  • Created By: Jasmine Martin
  • Workflow Status: Published
  • Created On: Dec 16, 2015 - 9:05am
  • Last Updated: Apr 13, 2017 - 5:17pm