Current research
There are two main projects running in our lab:
Aimed limb movements in locusts
Limbed vertebrates and invertebrates make complex aimed movements in many behaviours. We seek to understand how the nervous system of an insect, the locust Schistocerca gregaria, controls such movements. What sensory signals are needed? How are patterns of motor activity structured? How are the effects of gravity, friction and muscle elasticity incorporated into the control? How does the nervous system adapt to changes brought about by growth or damage to a limb? Can analyses of the principles of organisation found in an insect nervous system inform the design of autonomous robots or neuroprosthetic limbs?
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Figure: Trajectory of the tarsus (foot) marked at 40ms intervals during a scratch aimed at the tip of the wing.
Further details of this project are available here.
Phase change in locusts
Locusts are characterised by their ability to form vast swarms that cause tremendous damage to crops and vegetation. What changes in the nervous system accompany this remarkable switch between their normally solitary phase and their gregarious swarm-forming phase? How is the visual system adapted to the different lifestyles of solitarious and gregarious animals? How do their different daily (circadian) patterns of behaviour arise?
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Figure: Genetically similar juvenile locusts differ markedly in appearance depending on whether they have been raised either in isolation (left, solitarious phase) or as part of a crowd (right, gregarious phase). There are equally marked changes in physiology and beahaviour.
