Tomorrow we travel to the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and our diligent scientists have already printed their posters! Ottavia Palazzo will present her work on genome editing the FoxP locus of Drosophila with anatomical and behavioral characterizations […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Learning is an essential component for an animal’s survival as it enables for better future decisions: such as finding more nutritious food or avoiding harmful stimuli. While the molecular mechanisms underlying learning and memory have been studied extensively, only little […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The human FOXP2 (Forkhead Box P2) gene has been identified as a key component for the development of language. Such vocal learning is a form of motor learning that proceeds slowly from babbling in toddlers (or subsong in songbirds) towards […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Actions are followed by consequences, and each of these consequences has a subjective value. The value assigned to these consequences shape our future actions in what is often called “learning by doing”. But how is value conferred in the brain? […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This is the story behind our work on the function of the FoxP gene in the fruit fly Drosophila (more background info). As so many good things, it started with beer. Troy Zars and I were having a beer on […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
See this post with the associated press releases on brembs.net. The Forkhead Box P2 (FOXP2) gene is well-known for its involvement in language disorders. We have discovered that a relative of this gene in fruit flies, dFoxP, is necessary for […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
At this year’s Winter Conference on Animal Learning and Behavior, I was invited to give the keynote presentation on the relationship between classical and operant conditioning. Using the slides below, I argued that Skinner already had identified a weakness in […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
“Standing on the shoulders of giants” is what scientists say to acknowledge the work they are building on. It is a statement of humility and mostly accompanied by citations to the primary literature preceding the current work. In today’s competitive […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This year’s Winter Conference on Animal Learning and Behavior (WCALB) will be on one of my oldest and most central research projects, the commonalities and differences between operant and classical conditioning. I picked this project for my Diploma (Master’s) thesis […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
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