Ecological divergence along the early neuraxes

生物学家对大脑的发育过程了解很多，但对大脑多样性进化过程中使用的机制知之甚少。这项拟议中的研究整合了生态学、进化遗传学和分子生物学等学科，以确定生物体一生中最早发生的一些事件是如何导致大脑组织的差异，并最终导致行为的差异。预期的结果包括确定组织胚胎大脑的发育信号通路，以及这些通路的变化驱动生态相关的大脑多样化的手段。更广泛的影响包括(i)对动物发育和行为之间关系的综合理解，（ii）女性和科学少数群体博士后科学家的培训，以及（iii）亚特兰大内城小学的创造性教育计划。

Biologists know a great deal about how the process of development makes a brain, but less about the mechanisms employed during the evolution of brain diversity. The proposed research integrates the disciplines of ecology, evolutionary genetics and molecular biology to determine how some of the earliest events in an organism's lifetime lead to differences in brain organization, and ultimately to differences in behavior. Expected outcomes include the identification of developmental signaling pathways that organize embryonic brains and the means by which changes in these pathways drive ecologically relevant brain diversification. Broader impacts include (i) an integrative understanding of the relationship between animal development and behavior, (ii) the training of female and science-minority postdoctoral scientists, and (iii) creative educational programs for inner city Atlanta elementary schools.