Abstract
It is widely accepted that innate behaviours, those displayed by naïve animals without any prior experience, are genetically specified. However, we still have very limited understanding of how behavioural programmes are encoded within an organism’s genome. This is an important question with overarching impact in the fields of neuroscience and evolution. The aim of this project is to identify genetic variations underlying a complex behavioural sequence such as mating. We will combine automated tracking of behaving animals, computational algorithms for quantitative behavioural analysis and genetics to identify the molecular basis of natural variations in C. elegans mating behaviour.
References
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