Jerome Beetz: Representation of space in a miniature brain
| When |
Jul 09, 2025
from 12:15 PM to 01:45 PM |
|---|---|
| Where | IMBIT NEXUS Lab, Georges-Köhler-Allee 201, 79110 Freiburg |
| Contact Name | Natalia Ilin |
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Abstract
Each actively moving animal needs a sense of orientation. Whether it is a bat using a biosonar for short-range orientation or monarch butterflies that use a sun compass to keep their migratory direction for thousands of kilometres, each individual must know where to go. This information could be a goal direction, as it is the case for the monarch butterfly, or it could be an actual goal location. Unlike compass coding, the neuronal substrates of spatial goal coding are less understood in insects.
In this talk, I will present neuronal data that I monitored in tethered flying monarch butterflies that were free to steer with respect to a compass cue. By changing the butterfly’s goal direction, I was able to characterize goal direction neurons in the insect brain. While monarch butterflies are ideal model organisms to study directional coding, they may be less suited to study the representation of goal locations. To study place coding in insects, I recently shift my research focus on bees. Bees are central place foragers and start their journey at a fixed location. This site fidelity requires place coding. With neural recordings from freely walking honeybees that forage in a circular arena, we started to study place coding in the insect brain.
Discussion
The lecture will be followed by informal discussions with light snacks and drinks.
Where:
IMBIT NEXUS Lab, Georges-Köhler-Allee 201, 79110 Freiburg
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