The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons, each making thousands of synaptic connections. While individual neurons can themselves perform sophisticated information processing, it is the assembly of neurons into circuits via specific patterns of synaptic connections that endows our brain with the computational capacity to sense, act, think, and remember.
How are neurons organized into specialized circuits to perform specific functions? How are these circuits assembled during development? We are investigating these questions in the brains of the fruit fly (~100 thousand neurons) and mouse (~100 million neurons). We have developed molecular-genetic and viral tools, and are combining them with transcriptomic, proteomic, physiological, and behavioral approaches to study these problems.
