Gene Networks for Attention and Motor Control: A Path from Drosophila to Humans
Abstract
This grant effort was instrumental in promoting two main innovations. The first of these innovations is conceptual: we chose a simple instantiation of a fundamental problem, and describe an array of complementary approaches to enable its solution. We chose to study attention as an experimentally tractable and ethologically critical paradigm. We demonstrate by studying Drosophila tethered flight in a virtual reality arena, that flies possess the capability for top-down (endogenous or sustained) attention, assayed using distractible trace learning. Next, with the powerful genetic toolkit of Drosophila at our disposal, we performed a finer grained characterization of attentional neural circuitry involved, revealing concerted activity across brain regions to guide visual learning. Our success in a separate AFOSR DURIP award has further allowed us to combine the behavioral assay for attention with in vivo two-photon imaging to parameterize the response properties of specific neural structures during the distractible trace learning task.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 05, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1085911
Entities
People
- Ralph Greenspan
Organizations
- University of California, San Diego