Collaborative Research: Brain Metabolic Plasticity and Agression

该研究项目将解决大脑功能和行为之间联系的基本但复杂的生物现象。大脑是一个完整的动态系统，其区域、神经束和细胞类型对环境刺激表现出不同的反应，这些反应必须整合以协调行为反应。在这个项目中，蜜蜂攻击行为的机制将被分析。众所周知，代谢是蜜蜂侵略不可或缺的，然而，在神经和行为可塑性方面，与侵略相关的代谢转变的后果仍然未知。该项目将联合收割机系统生物学的建模工具与基因组数据和实验验证相结合，以解决大脑代谢和行为之间的联系，在蜜蜂的攻击行为的背景下。Price实验室将为蜜蜂构建一个基因组规模的代谢网络模型，这将提供一个框架来假设代谢基因表达的变化如何影响蜜蜂大脑的代谢。此外，他们还将分析蜜蜂亚种之间的遗传和调控变异，以确定大脑代谢的候选调控因子。确定大脑代谢调节因子的遗传变异可能会让我们深入了解攻击性的自然变异是否是大脑代谢调节的遗传差异的结果。该项目的建模和实验相结合的方面提供了大量的机会，让学生参加独立的研究和学习新的建模和实验技术。

This research project will address the fundamental, but complex biological phenomenon of the link between brain function and behavior. The brain is an integrated and dynamic system with regions, neuronal tracts, and cell types that show distinct responses to environmental stimuli, and these responses must be integrated to coordinate behavioral response. In this project, the mechanisms underlying aggressive behavior in honey bees will be analyzed. It is known that metabolism is integral to the aggression in honey bees, however, the consequences of the aggression-related shift in metabolism, in terms of neural and behavioral plasticity, remain unknown. The Project will combine the modeling tools of systems biology with genomic data and experimental validation to address the link between brain metabolism and behavior in the context of aggressive behavior in the honey bee. The Price Lab will construct a genome-scale metabolic network model for the honey bee, which will provide a framework to hypothesize how changes in metabolic gene expression affect metabolism in the honey bee brain. In addition, they will analyze genetic and regulatory variation between sub-species of honey bee to identify candidate regulators of brain metabolism. Identifying genetic variation in the regulators of brain metabolism may provide insight into whether natural variation in aggression is a result of heritable differences in metabolic regulation in the brain. The combined modeling and experimental aspects of this project offer a multitude of opportunities for students to take part in independent research and learn new modeling and experimental techniques.