Alumni Spotlight

Before joining the Connectomics group in Cambridge, I completed my MSc in Neuroscience at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, then took a position as a research assistant at the University of Oxford to work with human neuroimaging data. Here I worked towards identifying neuroimaging and behavioural biomarkers in atypical Alzheimer’s […]

During my 9-month internship, I helped with tracing and analysing neurons that synapse in the accessory calyces of the fly brain’s learning centre – the mushroom body. Sensory inputs to the accessory calyces are rarely smell-related, which is uncommon for the mushroom body. Our main focus for instance – the […]

During my time in the Connectomics group, I collaborated with the Sexual Dimorphism team. In Drosophila melanogaster, the male pheromone 11-cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA) evokes sexually dimorphic behaviours, stimulating courtship in females while eliciting aggression in males. It has previously been shown that this arises from anatomical and molecular differences between […]

Whilst in Cambridge I contributed to tracing neurons and analysing connectivity of the mushroom body. This region of the fly brain is involved in olfactory associative learning and memory. Our subteam in Cambridge collaborated with Scott Waddell’s lab at the University of Oxford. I enjoyed being involved in applying findings […]