How Do Behavioral Context and Internal State Influence Sensory Perception and Behavior?

Behavior is flexible and we can adapt it according to certain needs or particular contexts. ILONA GRUNWALD KADOW and her team are interested in the underlying neural mechanisms in the brain and also the genes that allow us to exhibit flexible behavior. As Grunwald Kadow explains in this video, they used fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and genetic methods in their experiments. Their findings suggest that internal state and context indeed change the way sensory information is processed at different levels in the brain. This combination of sensory changes and higher brain changes seems to be really effective in changing the fly’s behavior and allows flexibility. This appears to be a general mechanism that may also explain why human behavior is flexible.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10456

Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München)

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