Physics & Engineering Physics Colloquium

Marc Gershow, Ph.D., associate professor of physics and neuroscience at New York University, will present “Are You Smarter Than A Maggot?”

Despite having very few neurons (~104; humans have ~1011), the fruit fly larva’s brain is capable of sophisticated computations. The larva coordinates its movement, navigates its environment, integrates conflicting sensory inputs, and learns from experience. Modern tools allow us to record and manipulate the activity of individual neurons in the larva’s brain, and a “wiring diagram” made using electron microscopy provides a guide to understanding how information flows through “neural circuits.” Gershow will discuss his lab’s work in understanding some of the computations carried out by the larva’s brain and try to give a sense of why this work is being done in the physics department.