Neural bases of honeybee visual information processing and locomotion control
A
fully funded (BBSRC White Rose) 4-year Ph.D. studentship available in
the Juusola Laboratory at the Department of Biomedical Science in the
University of Sheffield, starting in 2017. The studentship includes
tuition fees, stipend and a £5K RTSG per year and a 3-month internship
(PIPS) away from the lab.
Background:
Eyes and brains code information about the world as neural activity
patterns, but little is understood about how these patterns originate
and are used for executing visual behaviours. However, it is likely that
the underlying computations occur at the level of circuits, where
neurons and their connections interact dynamically. The first activity
patterns that encode visual information are generated in retinal
circuits, which for many animals is also the only source of visual
sensation. Experiments and theory suggest that these early ‘neural images’ employ adaptive synaptic processing to capture behaviourally-important
features in visual scenes. Because vision must guide behaviour
according to the similarities and differences between objects, resolving
the uncertainty of images is a central challenge for their early
processing. While the visual systems have evolved to deal with this
challenge, their workings and computational principles that form the
basis for object recognition remain unclear.
Objectives:
(i) To assess how contrast/colour/motion information is represented and
distributed at the level of the first visual synapses in the honeybee
retina and lamina. (ii) To compare this early visual information
processing to honeybee behavior at the same test stimulus conditions.
Novelty and timeliness:
Our new experimental and theoretical methods are unique in the world,
enabling us to perform groundbreaking experiments that link single cell
and network processing in the honeybee compound eyes to animal
behaviour.
Experimental Approach:
Performing intracellular recordings from honeybee photoreceptors and
visual interneurons in a new virtual reality system, and comparing and
analysing these results against our mathematical models.
The
student will investigate early visual information processing and
locomotion control, using neural recordings from honeybees in virtual
flight/walking simulators. This approach will allow the student to link
experiments with theory, connecting visual environments presented to
real bees to their retinal image processing and locomotion, and to
mathematical models of early vision.
If you are interested in this Ph.D. project (and in quantitative approaches to neuroscience and behaviour in
general), please email contact Mikko:
Prof. Mikko Juusola
Department of Biomedical Science The University of Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TN, UK m.juusola@sheffield.ac.ukTel. 0114-222 1087
Department of Biomedical Science The University of Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TN, UK m.juusola@sheffield.ac.ukTel. 0114-222 1087
We
would encourage students from Engineering, Physics and Mathematics and
Biologists with a strong motivation for quantitative work and hand-on
experimental research to apply.
Primary Supervisor: Prof. Mikko Juusola http://www.shef.ac.uk/bms/research/juusola
Co-supervisors: Prof. James Marshall http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/J.Marshall/james.html Dr. Alex Cope