Please join Bilkent University’s Psychology Department on Wednesday for the visit of Prof. Özlem Çevik.
Speaker: Özlem Çevik, TOBB Ekonomi ve Teknoloji Üniversitesi
“Modulation of sensory processing and action selection by genes, learning, and behavioral states in fruit flies”
Date: Wednesday, 7 December 2022
Time: 17:00
Location: room A130
Abstract:
Animals show variable responses to similar stimuli, and sources of behavioral variation are popular research topics in translational neuroscience. Inter-individual variation stemming from the genetic background or neurodevelopment tends to be stable across life span and constrains the range of modification by experience. Intra-individual variation in behavior can be observed across different time scales, from sub-second effects of attention to relatively permanent effects of learning. Behavioral states are prominent sources of intra-individual variation that change sensory processing and action selection, typically in the range of minutes to hours. In this talk, I will present data from our lab to show how the collision anticipatory response of fruit flies is modulated by genetic background, learning, and competing behavioral states across different time spans.
About the speaker:
I received my MS from METU Psychology in 1993, and PhD from Indiana University, in Bloomington – Program in Animal Learning & Behavior and the Center for Integrative Study of Animal Behavior in 2000. I worked with Bill Timberlake, Armando Machado, Joe Farley and George Rebec as a graduate student. I was working on the dopaminergic modulation of temporal perception & discrimination, so I moved on to join Warren Meck’s lab at Duke University to study timing with monoamine-receptor knockout mice, which then was a novelty 🙂 I started working with fruit flies when I started my own lab in Bolu, Turkey in 2002. I’ve been working on how dopamine mediates behavioral state-driven changes in sensory processing and response selection in fruit flies for 20 years now.