Damon Clark, PhD, Yale University
Damon Clark, PhD
Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular & Development Biology, Yale University
Research: “How do multiple motion signals guide behavior in a small visual circuit”
Research
How do multiple motion signals guide behavior in a small visual circuit
Our lab interested in understanding how networks of neurons work together to perform computations. In order to dissect a neural computation, one must understand the task being performed, control the network’s inputs, and manipulate the system’s component parts. The fruit fly’s visual-motor transformations serve as an ideal model in which we can hope to follow neural processing as the brain transforms a visual stimulus into a behavioral output. In order to uncover principles and mechanisms of visual processing, we create novel stimuli, measure fly behavior, monitor neural activity, and employ genetics to manipulate circuit function. In particular, we want to understand how animals extract motion information from the complex spatiotemporal visual patterns in the natural world, and how they make decisions based on that information. We want to understand and model how the system computes at an algorithmic level, and also to use the battery of genetic tools in the fruit fly to discover the neural and biophysical mechanisms that implement those algorithms. By comparing fly algorithms and mechanisms to vertebrate ones, we look for evolutionary constraints and diversity in solutions to basic computational tasks.