2017 Neuroethology: Behavior, Evolution and Neurobiology Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary: Funds are requested to support the 8th Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Neuroethology, to be held June 18th ?June 23rd, 2015 at the Les Diablerets Conference Center Les Diablerets, Switzerland. The GRC will be preceded by a two day Graduate Research Seminar (GRS) organized by two postdoctoral fellows, with support from mentors that are leaders in the field. The GRS is designed for graduate students and postdocs to discuss their current research and to network with their peers. Almost all GRS attendees with also attend the GRC. The quest to understand the biological principles that exquisitely adapt organisms to their environments and which allow them to solve complex problems, has led to unexpected insights into how similar problems can be solved and are central to the BRAIN initiative. Recent cutting-edge advances in neuroethological research are revealing how animals sense their constantly changing environments and use this information neurally to control and generate complex behaviors, like locomotion and language. The 2017 GRC ? whose title is The Behavioral, Neural and Evolutionary Strategies for Animal Survival ? aims to take a multidisciplinary approach to discuss how animals have evolved convergent solutions to a wide range of problems. The neural solutions, including the underlying circuits and genes, are most readily studied in animals that have exaggerated a particular sensory system or evolved an elaborate behavioral repertoire as an adaptation to a specific, naturally occurring niche. These adaptions are usually formed in response to the fight for survival. For example, work on the specialized system in owls for finding prey has led to a general understanding of the auditory coding process, multisensory processing, and adult brain, work on conopeptides which are used by cone snails to catch prey has led to development of a new drug to treat chronic pain, and work on echolocating bats has led to new devices to aid hearing impaired humans. Speaker topics for this conference fall broadly into four main themes which examine: 1) The neural circuits underlying complex behaviors, including locomotion, and how the animal?s environment can alter circuits; 2) The neural circuits underlying communication signals and language; 3) The response to pain by looking at the use of and adaptation to identified toxins; 4) The use of neurogenetics to probe known circuits underlying complex behaviors. Discussion within each of these themes will generate important information about the basic function of the nervous system and could lead to future drugs for pain and devices to help alleviate neural dysfunction.