Love, smell and memory: exploring the brain circuits for learned and innate behaviour

Francis Crick Lecture 2019 given by Dr Gregory Jefferis

How does the genome encode behaviour through the development of the nervous system? What makes male and female brains different? What is different about brain circuits for learned and unlearned behaviour?

Gregory Jefferis will provide answers to these questions from his group's work on the fruit fly, Drosophila. They are using the latest technologies to study animal behaviour and to monitor and perturb neurons. They are also using the new science of connectomics to map the neuronal wiring diagram of this tiny but sophisticated brain. Together this is revealing some of the core logic by which brains process information and control behaviour, principles that are likely shared all the way to humans. 

The award

The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture is awarded annually in any field in the biological sciences. Preference is given to genetics, molecular biology and neurobiology, the general areas in which Francis Crick worked, and to fundamental theoretical work, which was the hallmark of Crick’s science.

The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture 2019 is awarded to Dr Gregory Jefferis for his fundamental discoveries concerning the development and functional logic of sensory information processing.

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