Lmst

The power of #Drosophila genetics to study neuronal evolution:

"We then modified Drosophila retinas to have butterfly-like transcription factor expression, causing recruitment of an additional R7. The two R7s make independent stochastic choices, like butterflies, leading to three stochastically distributed ommatidial types instead of two."

And then they show how the excess of neurons that would otherwise die or repeat existing circuit motifs is repurposed to accommodate the extra photoreceptors, configuring retinal circuits like in the buttefly.

"Sensory receptor expansion and neural accommodation in butterfly color vision", Gao et al. 2025.

#neuroscience #NeuralEvolution #NeuroEvo

"Comparative single-cell transcriptomic atlases of drosophilid brains suggest glial evolution during ecological adaptation", Lee et al. 2025 (Richard Benton's lab)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003120

#neuroscience #Drosophila #glia #evolution #NeuroEvo

And of course lifestyle, or rather, ecological niche specialisation, tilts the vision-olfaction trade off, here in wasps:

“Differential investment in visual and olfactory brain regions is linked to the sensory needs of a wasp social parasite and its host”, by Rozanski et al. 2021 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cne.25242

This work compared the eusocial wasp Polistes dominula with its obligate social parasite Polistes sulcifer.

#NeuroEvo #neuroscience #entomology #Hymenoptera #wasplove #wasps #Polistes

The social parasite Polistes sulcifer presents an overall smaller brain but the volume of its central is comparable to that of its host, Polistes dominula. The sensory neuropils, though, are reduced.

Neuropils of the visual system of the parasite Polistes sulcifer are reduced relative to those of its host, Polistes dominula.

The tradeoff between vision and olfaction has been studied in flies. There’s a strain of Drosophila melanogaster that’s been reared in the dark for decades: the so-called “dark flies”. Here, the authors examine the effect of rearing “dark flies” in the light for 1 and for 65 generations, and observe how brain regions for vision are boosted even within 1 generation:

“Back to the light, coevolution between vision and olfaction in the “Dark-flies” (Drosophila melanogaster)”
Özer & Carle 2020 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228939

#neuroscience #DarkFlies #Drosophila #evolution #NeuroEvo

The “dark flies” strain has the smallest optic lobe and largest visual lobe. Even rearing them for one single generation increases the size of the optic lobe and shrinks that of the antennal lobe, an effect even stronger at 65 generations. The Oregon fly strain is the closest extant strain and serves as a reference point, with volumes of the antennal and optic lobes not too far from those of “dark flies” reared 65 generations in light.

"Phylogenetic tracing of midbrain-specific regulatory sequences suggests single origin of eubilaterian brains", by Schuster and Hirth, 2023 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade8259

A genetic signature of bilateral animals with brains, including "a genetic boundary separating the rostral from caudal nervous systems, demonstrated for the metameric brains of annelids, arthropods, and chordates and the asegmental cycloneuralian and urochordate brain"

In other words, the genetic toolkit of the ancestor of both protostomes (arthropods, nematodes, molluscs and annelids) and deuterostomes (echinoderms and vertebrates) – the eubilaterian.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade8259

#neuroscience #DevBiol #EvoDevo #NeuroEvo #evolution

Today is the last day to apply to the neuro-evo conference at #HHMIJanelia!

Apply here: https://www.janelia.org/you-janelia/conferences/neuro-evo-a-comparative-approach-to-cracking-circuit-function-iii

Dates: May 15-18, 2023.

#NeuroEvo #Janelia #HHMI #conference #neuroscience #connectomics #DevBio #EvoDevo

https://mathstodon.xyz/@albertcardona/109405695524270512

Neuro-evo conference at HHMI Janelia on May 15-18, 2023.

Application deadline: January 27, 2023

Apply here: https://www.
janelia.org/you-janelia/confer
ences/neuro-evo-a-comparative-approach-to-cracking-circuit-function-iii

"this meeting will bring together neuroscientists working on a broad diversity of animal models in an effort to compare circuits across phyla as a means to crack their function."

#NeuroEvo #Janelia #HHMI #conference #science #neuroscience #DevBio #connectomics #connectome

Neuro-evo conference at HHMI Janelia on May 15-18, 2023. Join us for the 3rd edition!

Application deadline: Jan 27 (11:59 p.m. EST) 2023.

Apply here: https://www.janelia.org/you-janelia/conferences/neuro-evo-a-comparative-approach-to-cracking-circuit-function-iii

"The third instalment of this meeting will once again bring together neuroscientists working on a broad diversity of animal models in an effort to compare circuits across phyla as a means to crack their function."

#NeuroEvo #Janelia #HHMI #conference #science #academia #neuroscience #DevBio #connectomics #connectome

Neuro-evo conference at HHMI Janelia on May 15-18, 2023. Join us for the third edition!

Application deadline: Jan 27 (11:59 p.m. EST) 2023.

Apply here: https://www.janelia.org/you-janelia/conferences/neuro-evo-a-comparative-approach-to-cracking-circuit-function-iii

"Historically, with the study of the most convenient animal models —from the giant axon of the squid and the lobster's stomatogastric circuits to Aplysia's synapses and C. elegans' circuits — neuroscientists revealed some of the operating principles of the nervous system, which were then found to apply broadly across phyla. The third instalment of this meeting will once again bring together neuroscientists working on a broad diversity of animal models in an effort to compare circuits across phyla as a means to crack their function."

#NeuroEvo #Janelia #HHMI #conference #science #academia #neuroscience #DevBio #connectomics #connectome

#NeuroEvo

Client Info