Transcriptional coding of interneuron differentiation

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All animals on earth, from sea slugs to insects to humans, use a specialized neuron called an interneuron to integrate a wide range of information about themselves and the world around them. Most animals, whether invertebrate such as insects, or vertebrate such as fish and humans, have at least one region of the brain that is made up exclusively of interneurons. These regions are required for thinking, decision making, learning and memory. This project will utilize molecular and genetic approaches to study the development of a brain structure called the mushroom body of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The mushroom body is somewhat analogous to the forebrain of mammals based on gene expression profiling and is composed of thousands of interneurons. The mushroom body of fruit fly is also required for learning and memory, and is involved in other complex behaviors such as courtship. This research will improve our understanding of how interneurons are wired during embryonic development and also identify genes and molecules involved in the specification and formation of interneurons. Resources and tools generated will be available through ScholarSpace, a digital repository maintained by the University of Hawaii (https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/), and through Flybase (http://flybase.org/) and the Bloomington Stock Center, a digital repository for information about the fruit fly and a physical repository of Drosophila stocks, maintained by Indiana University. This project will also impact a broader community. A significant portion of this proposal is devoted to providing a hypothesis-driven research experience to ~175 undergraduate students each year, giving these students the opportunity to learn science by participating in state-of-the-art Neurobiology, and instilling them with the knowledge and confidence required to pursue the scientific endeavor and generate knowledge that describes a key feature of the animal kingdom, the brain.