Expertise
Defining the mechanisms by which experience is coupled to changes in the chemistry and structure of the brain is a fundamental aim of neuroscience research. My research focuses on linking molecular and structural changes in the brain with changes in behavior. Using insect models that display complex social behaviors (the honey bee and bumble bee), my laboratory studies the impact of environmental stressors on learning and memory. Using a modern approach to a decades-old behavioral test, the lab explores environmental stressors on learning in the developing and adult honey bee. The effects of long-term pesticide exposure and real-world combinations of pesticides will be explored first. Using a marker specific for neuronal synapses, changes in learning will be correlated to changes in brain structure. The lab also is exploring the effect experience, including learning and pesticide exposure, on brain structure. Using immunohistochemical techniques combined with modern microscopy and image processing, we reconstruct 3-dimensional representations of the mushroom bodies, a multisensory area of insect brain implicated in learning. Changes in synaptic structures are used as a measure of the effect of experience.