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SUMMARY:BMI Circuits & Behavior Seminar // Rachel Wilson\, "Neural mechani
 sms of navigation behavior"
DTSTART:20210526T140000
DTEND:20210526T150000
DTSTAMP:20260510T064857Z
UID:641dca65cc75d060fa9e5a87a6e8d4fd276b9cb576e22e61302ab331
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Rachel Wilson\, Joseph B. Martin Professor of Basic Research i
 n the Field of Neurobiology\, Harvard Medical School. Investigator\, Howar
 d Hughes Medical Institute.\nThe regions of the insect brain devoted to sp
 atial navigation are beautifully orderly\, with a remarkably precise patte
 rn of synaptic connections. Thus\, we can learn much about the neural mech
 anisms of spatial navigation by targeting identifiable neurons in these ne
 tworks for in vivo patch clamp recording and calcium imaging. Our lab has 
 recently discovered that the "compass system" in the Drosophila brain is a
 nchored to not only visual landmarks\, but also the prevailing wind direct
 ion. Moreover\, we found that the compass system can re-learn the relation
 ship between these external sensory cues and internal self-motion cues\, v
 ia rapid  associative synaptic plasticity.\nPostsynaptic to compass neuro
 ns\, we found neurons that conjunctively encode heading direction and body
 -centric translational velocity. We then showed how this representation of
  travel velocity is transformed from body- to world-centric coordinates at
  the subsequent layer of the network\, two synapses downstream from compas
 s neurons. By integrating this world-centric vector-velocity representatio
 n over time\, it should be possible for the brain to form a stored represe
 ntation of the body's path through the environment.\n 
LOCATION:https://epfl.zoom.us/j/67097837123
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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