Professor, department of biology, Université de Fribourg

Mechanistic and evolutionary insights into the making and forgetting of memories.

Plasticity of the brain with its ability to learn and form memories is one of the most astonishing features of the nervous system. Powerful genetics of the fruit fly allows us to identify molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms that are used to form, maintain or forget memories. A first focus lies on how memory maintenance and forgetting is balanced in the healthy and diseased brain. Combining our knowledge from the fruit fly with with selected, evolutionarily imporant representatives further allows us to descirbe common and divergent processes in that allow simple and complex cognitive functions to be achieved.

Invited by Tihana Jovanic and Daniel Vasiliauskas