Curriculum in PDF: English CV

Studies having as their main focus the neurogenetics of behaviour using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. The behavioural aspects of interest essentially include cognitive/motor aspects of the processes involved in decision-making; learning and memory; attention/eccitability.

Currently, my main interest rests in the use of Drosophila as a model of neuropsychiatric disease.Flies allow experimental approaches which are still difficult to address in other vertebrate model organisms, with particular reference to the sophisticated genetics and a very powerful toolbox of transgenic methods for neuronal circuit analysis. In addition, Drosophila has a relatively complex nervous system which shares many fundamental cellular and neurobiological processes with humans. Altogether the common denominator of my ongoing research activity entails the use of Drosophila melanogaster as a model to study the genetics of behavioural, neuromuscular and synaptic defects which have some relation to known human hereditary diseases. The subject proposed for thesis work will revolve around the study of different aspects of behaviour in Drosophila, such as: sleep/wake rhtyms; locomotor activityin single individuals and/or groups of flies; attention/eccitability; learning and memory.