Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Innate Neuronal Circuits

Objective

Animals exhibit behavioral repertoires that are often innate and result in stereotyped sexual and social responses to their environment. Sexual behaviors represent a robust set of innate responses. Genetic studies in Drosophila strongly imply the FruM, a male-specific isoform of the fruitless gene in programming male courtship. The circuit of female behavior on the other has been largely uncharacterized. Here I propose to identify and characterize the neurons involved in female receptivity. I will follow two independent yet complementary approaches: 1) I will use a laser guided neuronal tracing procedure together with electrophysiology to follow to higher order neurons the circuit for sensing the male pheromone cisvaccenyl acetate. cisvaccenyl acetate sensing has common properties at the sensory level in males and females yet it generates different behaviors; 2) I will perform a behavioral screen of lines of flies with different subsets of neurons inhibited for their activity. Once I identify the lines that have a behavioral effect, I will characterize the anatomy, function and connectivity of the subsets of neurons marked in the selected lines. This will be facilitated by the fact these lines allow access to genetic manipulation specifically in the defined subsets of neurons. With this work I expect to contribute to a comprehensive view of the circuits for female sexual behavior. It will allow to determine how much commonality is there between the male and female brain and more importantly to identify general neuronal architectures that guide behavior.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2009-RG
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IRG - International Re-integration Grants (IRG)

Coordinator

FUNDACAO CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN
EU contribution
€ 100 000,00
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0