The development and functional experience of a nervous system are keys to understanding an animal’s future behavior.

My laboratory conducts research in a number of areas within this broad topic, mostly using Drosophila melanogaster as the system of choice. Drosophila offers a unique opportunity to conduct investigations at the interface of development and behavior, to examine how behavior is defined by the nervous system’s synaptic circuitry and modulated by its functional plasticity. It offers the opportunity to examine the relationship between genetic control and behavior, and the potential to approach this relationship in an evolutionary context, aided by the genomic characterization of several Drosophila species. Fruit flies have a relatively simple brain, and yet display complex behaviors, including social interactions and experience-dependent plasticity, behaviors that we associate with sophisticated animals like ourselves. With its repertoire of powerful genetic and molecular tools, behavioral research in Drosophila will be an area with many advances and considerable excitement in the coming years.