How are the resources supporting the supply of energy supply distributed across neural circuits? Inspired by interactions with Simon Lauglin in Cambridge Zoology early in my research career, my work explores this and other questions of how neural circuitry is organized to support behaviour.
I use the visual system of flies: the circuitry is very regular, allowing repeated access to many cells; I can control visual stimuli with a precision difficult to achieve with other modalities; the power of Drosophila genetics and tools means we can access individual cell types to an extent not possible in vertebrates; finally, we have completely described the neuronal circuitry and the organization of neuronal mitochondria using connectomic analyses of EM data.
Previously, my work has identified neural mechanisms of visual processing and their modulation by internal states such as hunger and locomotion. It combines neurogenetics, behaviour, in vivo imaging of neural activity, electrophysiology, and connectomic analysis of neural circuits and their mitochondria. The long-term aim is to identify how neural circuits and their mitochondria coordinate and adapt to metabolic changes in health and disease.
I am currently also a visiting scientist with the Neural Circuits and Evolution Lab, Francis Crick Institute, London.
