Duda visited us and we conducted a successful one-day acute experiment – with a chronic silicon probe inserted in the auditory cortex. It was a great group effort!

Duda also gave a seminar:

Title: “Foraging decisions in flies and mice”

Abstract:
Foraging for food and energy resources is fundamental for animal survival. Therefore it is expected that dedicated genetic and neural circuit mechanisms would exist to support foraging decisions that maximize energy intake. In order to understand genetic basis of foraging decisions we focus on fruit fly as a model system to screen in an unbiased way for single molecules that parametrically shift fly’s preference. For this we build new psychophysics based probabilistic reward foraging assay that allows us to quantify animal’s choices as a function of reward history. In mice we use similar probabilistic reward foraging assay to gain insights into neural dynamics that support choices. I will present behavioral data both from flies and mice engaged in very similar tasks. I will also show in mice how single units in Medial Prefrontal Cortex represent upcoming choices.

Also in connection with our collaboration with Duda, we hosted Jesper Hagelskjær from his lab for 6 weeks. Jesper was practicing silicone probe surgeries supervised by Kati Sviatkó.