Neural circuit mechanisms of adaptation or sensitisation to neonicotinoid insecticides

“没有杀死你的东西会让你变得更强大”--还是压力会让你变得更虚弱？这个博士项目在神经元突触可塑性和杀虫剂的背景下解决了这个问题。许多杀虫剂会影响神经系统，导致昆虫即使在低剂量下也会表现出奇怪的行为，这是蜜蜂和其他被农业杀虫剂伤害的昆虫传粉者的主要问题。然而，神经系统的可塑性非常强，对活动水平的变化也很有弹性。我们最近在果蝇身上发现了一个嗅觉回路，它可以补偿兴奋性和抑制性输入的不平衡，这一过程被称为稳态可塑性。该项目将利用果蝇这一强大的遗传工具包，研究昆虫神经系统是否能够补偿增加突触兴奋(即适应)的杀虫剂。然而，补偿并不总是有帮助的；最近关于癫痫和自闭症等间歇性或发育性障碍的假说假设，对一个问题的补偿可能会使神经系统对其他应激源更加脆弱。因此，该项目还询问，补偿亚致死剂量的杀虫剂是否会在其他方面使昆虫不健康(“敏化”)。在这个项目中，学生将使用一系列尖端技术，包括多光子成像、电生理学、计算建模和行为分析。

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - or does stress make you weaker? This PhD project addresses this question in the context of neuronal synaptic plasticity and insecticides. Many insecticides affect the nervous system and cause insects to behave strangely even at low doses, which is a major problem for honeybees and other insect pollinators harmed by agricultural pesticides. Yet the nervous system is remarkably plastic and resilient to changes in activity levels. We recently identified an olfactory circuit in the fruit fly Drosophila that compensates for imbalances in excitatory and inhibitory input, a process known as homeostatic plasticity. This project will take advantage of the powerful genetic toolkit of Drosophila to study whether insect nervous systems can compensate for insecticides that increase synaptic excitation (i.e., "adaptation"). Compensation isn't always helpful though; recent hypotheses about episodic or developmental disorders like epilepsy and autism posit that compensation for one problem may render the nervous system more fragile for other stressors. Therefore, this project also asks whether compensating for sublethal doses of insecticide makes insects unhealthy in other ways ("sensitisation"). In this project, the student will use a range of cutting-edge techniques, including multiphoton imaging, electrophysiology, computational modelling, and behavioural assays.