MSI PI Trevor Wardill (assistant professor, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior) and student Rachael Feord developed a new technology that has allowed them to investigate how a fruit fly’s brain responds to seeing color. Fruit flies have a much faster visual system than humans and other animals whose color vision has been studied previously. This research leads to a greater understanding of how animals respond to stimuli and how it could affect their behavior and survival. The paper was published recently in the journal Scientific Reports: A Novel Setup for Simultaneous Two-photon Functional Imaging and Precise Spectral and Spatial Visual Stimulation in Drosophila. A story about the research also appears as a Research Brief on the University of Minnesota News site: New Method Developed to help scientists Understand How the Brain Processes Color.
Professor Wardill uses MSI resources for research into information processing principles used for visually guided behaviors in fruit flies and other similar species.