Caltech, UC Berkeley to Investigate How Brain Activity Controls
Complex Behavior  Oct 09, 2006  A new $4.4-million grant from
the National Science Foundation will allow researchers at the
California Institute of Technology and the University of
California, Berkeley, to develop techniques to turn brain cells
on and off in animals as they go about their daily activities,
allowing the scientists to understand the details of how brain
activity leads to complex behaviors.  According to principal
investigator Michael Dickinson, the Zarem Professor of
Bioengineering at Caltech, the five-year program is aimed at
solving one of the remaining great challenges facing biologists
--understanding the mechanistic basis of complex behavior. The
work will focus on fruit flies, which are a powerful model
system understood extremely well at the genetic level.  "New
approaches available in molecular genetics can now be applied to
manipulate individual brain cells in an attempt to understand
how brains control behavior," says Dick