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Alumni Spotlight: Maria Theiss
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 […]
Open position for Research Coordinator
A part-time Research Coordinator post is available in the Drosophila Connectomics group, at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, directed by Dr Greg Jefferis and Dr Matthias Landgraf. Positions are available for 1 year with the possibility of extension up until 30 Sep 2024 subject to project status and […]
We’re hiring!
Two Research Assistant posts are available in our Drosophila Connectomics Group directed by Greg Jefferis and Matthias Landgraf in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge. Positions are funded by a new £4.1M Wellcome international collaborative award with HHMI Janelia Research Campus in the US (FlyEM, Gerry Rubin, […]
Hey DAN, why you gotta be so different?
by Georgia Dempsey To find food and avoid danger in changing environments, animals benefit from learning to associate certain cues, such as odours, with pleasant or unpleasant experiences. Memories can be of positive or negative valence, reinforced by either rewarding or punitive stimuli. For example, the work of Pavlov demonstrated […]
Sniffing out the way to go down the line
by Nik Drummond and Alex Javier How can animals detect a stimulus and know how to act towards it? How do they integrate what they have learned in their lifetime with what their evolutionary history has ‘taught’ them about said stimulus? From insects to mammals, the circuits that encode information […]
Research Associate and Research Assistant Positions Now Open
Three Research Associate and two Research Assistant posts are available in the Drosophila Connectomics Group directed by Greg Jefferis and Matthias Landgraf in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge. Positions are funded by a new £4.1M Wellcome international collaborative award with HHMI Janelia Research Campus in the […]
Blog Posts, Neuron of the Month
May 2020
by Imaan Tamimi Reporting from lockdown with the Neuron Of The Month, we have a Lateral Horn Output Neuron (LHON) called AV6a3. Neurons communicate with one another through their dendrites and axons. Dendrites (cyan) are projections that receive inputs (cyan spheres) from other neurons, while axons (red) are projections that […]
Prepare for trouble, and make it double
by Billy Morris One of the key benefits of connectomics is that we establish the layout of the nervous system and its constituent elements. Knowing how the elements that make up the brain are connected simplifies the challenge of understanding how the brain processes information, executes behaviour and is modulated […]
Testing the water
All animals have a preferred temperature range, whether they’re crocodiles basking in the sun or a naked-mole rat burrowing underground. Being able to accurately sense environmental temperature (thermosensation) is a life or death scenario: too hot and the animal risks overheating whereas too cold can bring about hypothermia. Understanding how […]
Alumni Spotlight
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 […]