Vanessa Ruta - Themes and Variations in Social Brain Circuits (April 10, 2024)

Animals exhibit astonishing variation in their behavior, both within and across species.

In this Presidential Lecture, Vanessa Ruta will describe how her lab uses the elaborate courtship rituals of fruit flies (Drosophila) to study the brain circuit mechanisms responsible for adaptive behavior over different timescales. Her work generates insights such as how social interactions unfold on a moment-to-moment timescale and how species-specific mating displays arise through evolution. By applying an interdisciplinary toolkit to probe the concise circuits of the fly, her lab is shedding light on how the interplay between internal arousal states and external sensory signals shapes behavior, allowing animals to flexibly navigate complex social landscapes. More details: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/even...