Neuroscientists, including myself, strive to learn the general principles on how the brain works, often using model organisms. However, use of a single model organism hinders the understanding of the rationale behind the circuit design (“Why is it designed that way?”) and the evolvability of circuit functions (“What twists can make the animal behave in a different but meaningful way?”). I believe that comparative, cross-species approaches to elucidate how nervous systems adapt to confer animals with unique behaviors will be an effective complementary way to extract general principles of brain organization and function.

In this project, I study the central olfactory circuits in Drosophila sechellia, a fly species endemic to the Seychelles archipelago. Drosophila sechellia is specialized to Morinda citrifolia, or noni fruit, which emits a pungent odor that is attractive for this species but not for its cousin species Drosophila melanogaster. Taking advantage of the shifted behavioral output despite the similarity of their nervous systems, I compare the central olfactory circuits to elucidate how neuronal circuits evolve to enable behavioral adaptation and to understand the general principle of sensory processing.