SC Connecticut News

This year’s Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectureship will feature Cori Bargmann, PhD, of The Rockefeller University, speaking on “One Brain, Many Behaviors: The Fascinating World of Internal States.”

The lecture is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 12 noon in Harkness Auditorium. The event is hosted by the Department of Neuroscience.

Established in 1901, the Silliman Lectureship has a history of bringing distinguished scientists to speak at Yale, many of whom have later won Nobel Prizes.

Cori Bargmann holds the Torsten N. Wiesel Professorship and heads the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior at The Rockefeller University. Her research focuses on the relationships among genes, experience, and behavior in the nematode C. elegans.

Following is an abstract for Bargmann’s talk:

“How do genes and the environment interact to generate a variety of behaviors? How are behavioral decisions modified by context and experience? Neuroscience has reached a stage where these questions can be asked with great precision, and, in some cases, answered. The Bargmann lab has studied these questions in the nematode C. elegans, whose simple nervous system consists of only 302 neurons – yet the animal can move around, explore the environment, evaluate its social context, and learn from experience. Animal and human behavior is not fixed but is reversibly modified by internal motivational and emotional states. At the heart of these internal states are chemical neuromodulators such as serotonin, dopamine, and neuropeptides. Neuromodulators are highly conserved in evolution with recognizable similar functions in different animals. By studying molecules like serotonin and neuropeptides in C. elegans we have determined how they transiently "rewire" the nervous system allowing internal states to alter how information is processed. I will describe examples from social behaviors and sickness behaviors.”