2018 Francis Crick Lecture

Oct 17, 2018

Gero Miesenböck is giving the 2018 Francis Crick Lecture at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge on 24 October. The Crick Lecture, named in honour of the late LMB Nobel Laureate, is one of a series of named lectures organised...

Learning not to be scared

Oct 8, 2018

Fear memories allow animals to predict and avoid possibly dangerous situations. However, if an expected threat does not happen, it is also important to learn to be less fearful. This re-learning process is called memory extinction. Although extinction has been postulated for many years to involve parallel memories, it is unclear how and where extinction memories are formed and how they compete with the original memory to neutralise learned fear....

Subliminal decision-making

Apr 26, 2018

Subthreshold changes in membrane voltage represent accumulating evidence before a choice. The transcription factor FoxP sets neuronal integration and behavioural decision times. Decisions take time because the information needed to make them is rarely available all at once but must be gathered sequentially. We know from our own experience that decisions tend to be quick when the choice is unambiguous but protracted when evidence is...

Single-cell transcriptomes reveal cell-type diversity in the brain

Apr 19, 2018

Scott Waddell awarded an ERC Advanced Grant

Apr 10, 2018

Honorary doctorate for Gero Miesenböck

Dec 9, 2017

Do transposons jump in the brain?

Jul 26, 2017

The shape and function of every cell in our body is determined by the amount and types of protein molecules that they produce. The building plan for each cell is stored in the DNA of the genome. This information is carefully copied and passed on to daughter cells during the reproduction, development and growth of all living organisms. Any changes (mutations) that occur in the DNA of each cell could potentially have devastating effects on the...

Learned expectations are not always reliable

Apr 20, 2017

The bus doesn’t always arrive on time and your favourite dish is not always on the menu at the local restaurant. To account for an ever-changing world, animals must possess neural mechanisms to constantly update their learned predictions so that their choices correctly incorporate the new, sometimes contradicting information. A recent study from the Waddell lab in Nature reveals how the strength of memory-directed behavior is...

Weizmann Memorial Lectures

Jan 4, 2017

Gero Miesenböck will give the 2017 Weizmann Memorial Lectures at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The annual lecture series commemorates the founder of the Institute, Dr. Chaim Weizmann. The lectures are intended to review the state of the art and the newest developments in a chosen field. The series usually consists of two...

Massry Prize 2016

Aug 15, 2016

Gero Miesenböck has won the Massry Prize 2016 for his work on optogenetics. He shares the award with Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University and Peter Hegemann of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Optogenetics uses light-operated switches to control the electrical impulses of nerve cells. The ability to remote-control neuronal function has had a profound impact on...

Sandman’s role in sleep control

Aug 3, 2016

Sleep-promoting neurons switch between electrical activity and silence as a function of sleep need. The switch is operated by dopamine and involves the antagonistic regulation of two potassium channels. Sleep is one of the great biological mysteries. Each night we disconnect ourselves from the world for 7 or 8 hours—a state that leaves us vulnerable and unproductive. Yet despite these risks and costs, we do not know what sleep is...

Feed-forward inhibition in the mushroom body

May 19, 2016

Hunger promotes the behavioural expression of food-seeking memories. A recent study from the Waddell lab in Neuron discovered the neural circuit mechanism that provides this control. Hunger-state modulation increases the activity of a pair of inhibitory interneurons of the mushroom body so that odours more strongly drive mushroom body output pathways that favour approach behaviour. Surprisingly aversive learning promotes odour avoidance...

The neurotransmitter of the mushroom body is acetylcholine!

Mar 3, 2016

Memories are stored in the fan-out fan-in neural architectures of the mammalian cerebellum and hippocampus and the insect mushroom bodies. However, whereas key plasticity occurs at glutamatergic synapses in mammals, the neurochemistry of the memory-storing mushroom body Kenyon cell output synapses has been debated for decades. A recent study from the Waddell lab in Neuron shows acetylcholine is a Kenyon cell neurotransmitter in...

Frontiers of Knowledge Awards 2015

Jan 26, 2016

Gero Miesenböck has won a BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award for the development of optogenetics. He shares the € 400,000 prize with Edward Boyden of MIT and Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University. Optogenetics, according to the citation, “has revolutionized the study of brain function and is now used by neuroscientists around the world.” Understanding the brain’s function “would require the development of a technology...

Heinrich Wieland Prize 2015

Sep 15, 2015

Gero Miesenböck will receive the Heinrich Wieland Prize 2015 for his conception and first experimental demonstration of optogenetics. Named after the 1927 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Heinrich Wieland, the annual award recognises outstanding research on biologically active molecules and systems. It is among the most prestigious international science prizes awarded in Germany. To find out more Read more

Gero Miesenböck elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society

May 1, 2015

The Royal Society is the national Academy of science in the UK. Its Fellowship is made up of the most eminent scientists, engineers, and technologists from or living and working in the UK and the Commonwealth. The Society’s fundamental purpose, reflected in its founding Charters of the 1660s, is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use...

Memories located?

Apr 9, 2015

Finding locations in the brain where memories are formed, and understanding how memories are retrieved to instruct behaviour, are major goals of neuroscience. A recent study from the Waddell lab in Neuron localised memories to specific pathways in the output network of the fruit fly mushroom bodies. Surprisingly, reward and punishment learning altered odour-driven-activity of this connection in opposite directions. Moreover, it was...

Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences

Dec 22, 2014

Scott Waddell has received the Liliane Bettencourt Prize for Life Sciences 2014. Each year, the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation awards the Prize to a young researcher (under 45), recognized in the scientific community for the quality of his or her international publications. In addition to the recipient’s scientific recognition, the award-winning researcher must conduct a research project that is particularly promising and be able to...

FENS-Kavli Scholar

Dec 19, 2014

Tim Vogels is among 20 young European neuroscience researchers chosen to be the first FENS-Kavli Scholars. The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) and The Kavli Foundation have announced the first FENS-Kavli Scholars, chosen for the excellence of their research, as well as promise to be among the field’s newest generation of extraordinary pioneers. Launched this year, the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence aims to...

Neural correlates of water reward in thirsty fruit flies

Nov 17, 2014

Drinking water is innately rewarding to thirsty animals. A recent study from the Waddell lab in Nature Neuroscience demonstrated that neural circuit mechanisms of water wanting, learning and liking can be distinguished by their requirements for dopaminergic neurons in the brain of thirsty flies. The full paper can be viewed Lin et al. (2014). Suewei Lin...

Waddell lab featured in The Observer

Oct 12, 2014

Martin Booth awarded ICO Prize 2014

Oct 3, 2014

Professor Martin Booth has been awarded the ICO Prize 2014 by the International Commission for Optics for “his innovative and pioneering research on dynamic optical methods and new approaches to adaptive optics”. Booth’s research primarily concerns the development of dynamic optical methods for a range of interdisciplinary applications. A major application is the use of adaptive optics for aberration correction in high-resolution...

Think before you act!

May 22, 2014

Fruit flies take time to deliberate when faced with difficult decisions. The process is linked to FoxP, a gene associated with cognitive development and language in humans. Have you ever agonized over a difficult decision? Reflecting before committing to a choice is considered a hallmark of intelligence. In a study published in the journal Science, CNCB researchers report that fruit flies also ‘think’ before they...

Scott Waddell elected as EMBO Member 2014

May 7, 2014

Prof Scott Waddell, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the CNCB, has been elected as a Member of EMBO, in recognition of his molecular biology-directed studies of brain function in Drosophila. EMBO has announced today on the occasion of its 50^thanniversary that 106 researchers in the life sciences were newly elected to its membership. Of these, one hundred scientists reside in Europe and neighbouring...

How the brain forms distinct memories

Feb 23, 2014

Sparse odour coding by the Kenyon cells of the mushroom body generates a large number of precisely addressable locations for the storage of odour-specific memories. Anyone who associates the smell of freshly baked apple pie with happy childhood memories or the smell of disinfectant with a flu jab knows the power of associative memory, especially of associations with odours. But how do we attach distinct memories to the millions of...

The switch that says it’s time to sleep

Feb 19, 2014

A small group of neurons put flies to sleep when they need to rest. The body uses two mechanisms to regulate sleep. One is the body clock, which attunes humans and animals to the 24 hour cycle of day and night. The other mechanism is the sleep ‘homeostat’: a device in the brain that keeps track of your waking activity and puts you to sleep when you are tired and need to reset. This mechanism is purely internal. When it...

CNCB’s Brian Patton becomes Royal Society University Research Fellow

Oct 8, 2013

Dr Brian Patton is recognised by The Royal Society for his work on imaging deep tissue neural processes using nanodiamonds (ND). Dr Brian Patton of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at Oxford University is among just 41 scientists appointed by The Royal Society as Read more

Gabbay Award for optogenetics

Oct 2, 2013

Gero Miesenböck is one of this year's recipients of the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine. The award, presented by the Rosenstiel Center of Brandeis University in Massachusetts, is in recognition of the recipients' ‘contributions to the discovery and applications of optogenetics’. In addition to Gero Miesenböck, Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University and Edward S. Boyden of the Massachusetts Institute of...

Two CNCB papers in Neuron

Sep 9, 2013

A CNCB double bill—papers from the Miesenböck and Waddell groups—appears in the September 4 issue of Neuron. Click here to read Moshe Parnas, Andrew Lin, Wolf Huetteroth and Gero Miesenböck on 'Odor discrimination in Drosophila: from neural population codes to behavior.' Read more

Fruit fly brains use reward signals like ours

Apr 27, 2013

CNCB team shows that the neural reward system of flies is more similar to that of mammals than previously thought. A team led by Scott Waddell of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour shows that the fruit fly brain contains an evaluation system that is more similar to mammals than previously recognised. The research, published in Nature this month, demonstrates that the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is synonymous...

The Brain Prize 2013

Professor Gero Miesenböck, Director of the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour at the University of Oxford, has been awarded The Brain Prize 2013 "for the invention and refinement of optogenetics." Miesenböck was the first scientist who modified nerve cells genetically to produce light-responsive pigments. By shining light on the pigment-producing cells he caused them to become electrically active. The function of the nerve cells could...

Gene regulation specialist Korneel Hens establishes new lab at CNCB

Nov 1, 2012

Dr Korneel Hens joins CNCB as Group Leader, to explore how regulatory networks in neurons act to integrate and respond to incoming information, supporting the Centre's research into how intelligence emerges from the physical interaction of nerve cells. Professor Gero...

InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize 2012

May 3, 2012