10th Annual Nornes Lectureship in Neuroscience
Toward Understanding the Neural Basis of Behavior, from Animals to Biological Machines
11 February 2025
7pm, Knutson Campus Center Centrum
This event is free and open to the public.
Dr Haleh Fotowat is a neuroscientist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute and a visual artist. Dr Fotowat earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology, an M.S. from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Baylor College of Medicine, where she studied neural mechanisms underlying visually evoked escape behaviors. She pursued postdoctoral research at McGill University, the University of Ottawa, and Harvard University, focusing on neural circuits, behavioral variability, and sensory-driven responses, and developing innovative techniques like wireless neural recording in small animals. Currently a Senior Scientist at the Wyss Institute at Harvard, she explores cellular mechanisms of primitive cognition and memory in biological robots. An accomplished visual artist, her paintings are inspired by the beauty and unpredictability of life forms and have been showcased in numerous exhibitions.
Presentation Abstract
Much is known about the formation and architecture of biological neural networks in animal models, which have arrived at their current structure-function relationship through evolution by natural selection. Little is known, however, about the development of such structure-function relationship in a scenario where neurons from these animals are placed inside a new motile body and allowed to grow. In the first part of this lecture, I will talk about some of my earlier research on understanding neural correlates of visually-evoked escape behaviors and their flexibility in locusts, flies and zebrafish. Remarkably, the brain algorithms for sensing threats and triggering escapes are highly conserved across species. These innate behaviors are not only extremely efficient, but also highly flexible, showing changes in execution and probability in a context- and experience-dependent manner.
In the second part of the talk, I will discuss my current research, which focuses on discovering the limits to neuroplasticity of nervous systems. How would wild-type neurons establish pattern and function in completely novel embodiments? I will present a new class of self-organizing biological machines that incorporate neuronal tissue (neurobots). These neurobots are autonomous, self-powered, and able to move through aqueous environments. Neurobots show distinct external morphology, generate complex patterns of spontaneous movements, and are differentially affected by neuroactive drugs compared to their non-neuronal counterparts. Calcium imaging experiments show that neurons within neurobots are indeed active. Transcriptomics analysis of the neurobots reveals expression of a plethora of genes relating to nervous system development and function, and spontaneous upregulation of neuronal genes implicated in visual perception. Creating truly novel configurations of biological material allows us to probe the plasticity of evolutionary hardware to adapt on developmental (not evolutionary) timescales to truly novel circumstances and has applications for regenerative medicine and biological engineering.
Additional Reading and Videos
