BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Why do fruitflies like bananas? - Gregory Jefferis\, Department of
  Zoology
DTSTART:20050722T140000Z
DTEND:20050722T150000Z
UID:TALK4379@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Phil Cowans
DESCRIPTION:The fruitfly brain is small - containing about 100\,000 neuron
 s - but flies\ncan fly\, walk\, smell\, hear\, see\, learn\, recognise and
  mate with appropriate\npartners and sing.  I am interested in how brain c
 ircuitry is wired together\nand how this circuitry allows the animal to be
 have.  Although most of these\nbehaviours can be modified by experience\, 
 there seems to be a significant\nrole for genetically controlled\, innate 
 behaviours and this I find\nparticularly interesting.  How can genes regul
 ate species-specific\nbehaviour?\n\nMy own works focuses on the sense of s
 mell.  The olfactory system is a\nhighly parallel neural network. At the l
 evel of the nose smells are\ndecomposed into the activity of many sub-popu
 lations of neurons.  I will\npresent work that analyse the logic of how th
 e olfactory system is put\ntogether - especially the issue of wiring speci
 ficity.  I will also discuss\nsome current work that uses 3D image registr
 ation to improve our knowledge\nof the wiring diagram.  This is a prelude 
 to my main goal over the next few\nyears in Cambridge - to understand how 
 smells are represented in higher\nolfactory centres and to how understand 
 how this representation is generated\nby successive levels of neural proce
 ssing.
LOCATION:Ryle Seminar Room\, Cavendish Laboratory
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR