We present here our reflections on the scientific work of the late Troy D. Zars (1967 – 2018), on what it was like to work with him, and what it means to us. A common theme running through his work […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Archive for invited-reviews
11 results.
Nervous systems are typically described as static networks passively responding to external stimuli (i.e., the ‘sensorimotor hypothesis’). However, for more than a century now, evidence has been accumulating that this passive-static perspective is wrong. Instead, evidence suggests that nervous systems […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
“Sshh, don’t tell anybody” Professor Troy Zars shushed me: “I have them!”. He was of course referring to fly stocks mutant for the CG16899 gene, now known as FoxP (forkhead box P). While this after-hours discussion took place in 2007 […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Although a case can be made for rewarding scientists for risky, novel science rather than for incremental, reliable science, novelty without reliability ceases to be science. The currently available evidence suggests that the most prestigious journals are no better at […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
In which journal a scientist publishes is considered one of the most crucial factors determining their career. The underlying common assumption is that only the best scientists manage to publish in a highly selective tier of the most prestigious journals. […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Until the advent of modern neuroscience, free will used to be a theological and a metaphysical concept, debated with little reference to brain function. Today, with ever increasing understanding of neurons, circuits and cognition, this concept has become outdated and […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on January 5, 2015
at 16:28
The successful stimulus-response approach to the organization of behavior has been the dominating paradigm for much of the psychology and neuroscience of the 20th century. Martin Heisenberg is a pioneer in championing the idea that all brains, even comparatively simple […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on January 5, 2015
at 16:28
Operant (instrumental) and classical (Pavlovian) conditioning are taught as the simplest forms of associative learning. Recent research in several invertebrate model systems has now accumulated evidence that the dichotomy is not as simple as it seemed. During operant learning in […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on January 5, 2015
at 16:28
Learning to anticipate future events on the basis of past experience with the consequences of one’s own behavior (operant conditioning) is a simple form of learning that humans share with most other animals, including invertebrates. Three model organisms have recently […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on January 5, 2015
at 16:28
Anticipating the future has a decided evolutionary advantage, and researchers have found many evolutionarily conserved mechanisms by which humans and animals learn to predict future events. Researchers often study such learned behavior using conditioning experiments. The marine snail Aplysia has […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posted on January 5, 2015
at 16:28
