Developmental Neuroscience seminars

This lecture examines the development and evolution of insect learning centres. It asks how expanded neuronal populations and cell-type diversity support the behaviour of social species such as ants. Mechanisms in insect mushroom bodies are compared with changes in the mammalian cortex.

Dopamine-based reinforcement is well studied in artificial tasks, but its role in learning natural behaviour needs direct evidence. This talk tracks juvenile zebra-finch song alongside dopamine signals in a song-related basal-ganglia region. Signals distinguish renditions approaching the eventual adult song from poorer versions, predict later behavioural change and depend on recent performance history. These observations support a prediction-error account of reinforcement during developmental vocal learning.

This lecture uses the fruit-fly visual system to examine how neuronal diversity emerges from developing stem cells. Differences between the timing of cell division and developmental progression can produce varied cell lineages. The discussion considers how related principles might help explain diversity in the mammalian cortex and retina.

This lecture asks how developing brains generate many distinct neuronal types. It examines the contribution of a stem cell's spatial origin and its changing developmental state. Work in simpler nervous systems provides molecular examples that can inform the study of human cortical development.

2024 BACN Early-Career Prize Lecture Many of our decisions affect other people. Our choices can decelerate climate change, stop the spread of infectious diseases, and directly help or harm others. Prosocial behaviours – decisions that help others – could contribute to reducing the impact of these challenges, yet their computational and neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. I will present recent work that examines prosocial motivation, how willing we are to incur costs to help others, prosocial learning, how we learn from the outcomes of our choices when they affect other people, and prosocial preferences, our self-reports of helping others. Throughout the talk, I will outline the possible computational and neural bases of these behaviours, and how they may differ from young adulthood to old age.