Research Description

Yvette Fisher is an assistant professor of neurobiology in Molecular & Cell Biology.   The goal of her research is to use navigational circuitry to understand how neural circuits perform different computations under different conditions. Her research group explores this question in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Many insects are expert navigators; the circuits that hold the fly’s internal compass have been recently identified within a brain region that is conserved across most insects.   By combining the fly’s advanced genetic toolbox with accessibility to in vivo electrophysiology and 2-photon imaging during behavior, they explore how real-time changes in synaptic physiology, intrinsic excitability, and circuit dynamics enable the fly’s brain to form a sense of direction under varying conditions.