Mark Dombrovski defends his PhD thesis! Going to Larry Zipursky's lab in August.
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How do new circuits that control an animal's behavior form in the mature brain?
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Uncrowded larvae, on left, dive into liquid food and drag an air tunnel down so as to breath. However, when crowded, larvae coordinate their movements in large cooperative structures, right. The switch to cooperative behavior involves plasticity in the brain. The Condron lab seeks to use this process as a model of understanding plasticity in the mature brain.
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Our lab has found that specific circuits form in the mature larval brain that are required for cooperative behavior. These circuits grow in response to social signals and only during a 24hr critical period. We are currently investigating the molecular and cellular triggers that induce these new circuits to form. If we can determine how a circuit in a mature brain can be 're-mobilized' to determine a novel behavior in an animal, we will likely shed light now how the human brain could repair itself.
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