QBI Neuroscience Seminar: Sleep and wakefulness in Drosophila

Event Details

Date:

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

Time:

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Room:

Level 7, Auditorium

UQ Location:

Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)

URL:

http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/group-leader-van-swinderen

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Speaker: Associate Professor Bruno van Swinderen
Cognitive and behavioural neuroscience
Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland

Title:
Sleep and wakefulness in Drosophila

Abstract:
Sleep and wake processes seem quite different because they are associated with different conscious states in humans, but this subjective view is not necessarily helpful for understanding brain functions and disorders. Another view might suggest instead that sleep and wake states are actually quite similar: both are largely defined by suppression. During wakefulness, attention mechanisms select some stimuli and suppress most others in an ongoing choreography that some researchers have likened to a moving spotlight, where stimuli outside of the spotlight are effectively blocked from being perceived or evoking a response. When we fall into a deep sleep, or under general anaesthesia, the spotlight of attention presumably closes, but are similar suppression mechanisms still involved? In both states (wakefulness and sleep), our brain seems largely involved in blocking responses to most external stimuli. This capacity of brains, to actively suppress responses to most stimuli, may be one of its most ancient but less appreciated functions. I will be outlining how our studies on selective attention, sleep, and general anaesthesia in insect models might provide a better understanding of perceptual suppression mechanisms in the brain.