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Behaviour prioritization through sensory filters in Drosophila
Throughout the day, our brains are constantly bombarded by external stimuli, most of which get filtered out to extract behaviourally relevant information. This sensory filtering process continues during sleep, with primarily salient or strong stimuli capable of waking us up. We recently discovered a brain state allowing for quiescent behavior by generating coherent slow-wave activity (SWA) between sleep-need- (R5) and locomotion-promoting neural networks in Drosophila. Synchrony of these networks can regulate behavioral responsiveness by providing antagonistic inputs to downstream head direction cells. We propose that the temporal pattern of SWA provides the structure to create a ‘breakable’ filter, permitting the animal to enter a quiescent state, while providing the architecture for strong or salient stimuli to ‘break’ the neural interaction, consequently allowing the animal to react. Along with these network principles, I will present insights from the single cell level, where we identified calcium channel-mediated activity windows that promote breaking the filter and thus arousal.
Date:
29 August 2025, 11:00
Venue:
Sherrington Building, off Parks Road OX1 3PT
Venue Details:
Sherrington Library
Speaker:
Dr David Owald (Universitätsmedizin Berlin)
Organising department:
Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG)
Organiser:
Fiona Woods (University of Oxford, Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics, Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour)
Organiser contact email address:
fiona.woods@cncb.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
CNCB Seminar Series
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Fiona Woods
