• Björn Brembs' profile

    • What I do

      On the surface, my projects may seem randomly scattered across the biological sciences. But there’s an underlying theme concerning the general organization of behavior with regards to reward, punishment and decision making: How do brains accomplish adaptive behavioral choice? All animals possess a repertoire of inborn behaviors and continuously modify and adjust them to meet the requirements of the environment by learning. To study these processes, I use operant (instrumental) conditioning paradigms and contrast them with classical (Pavlovian) conditioning situations in flies (Drosophila) and snails (Aplysia). Such comparisons highlight the differences and similarities between behavioral and environmental learning, the two forms of predictive learning. Predicting the future is a vital information guiding animals in their decision of what to do next.

    • Affiliations

      Current

    • Interests

      After now 10 years of research in this field, I begin to have the suspicion that the main function of brains may be best described in terms of output/input systems. Brains generate spontaneous behavior and monitor the incoming sensory stream for the portion which is controlled by the behavior. Operant behavior and operant learning are the main mechanisms by which this function is accomplished and the consequences of behavioral choices are evaluated.
      Before focusing on these simple forms of learning, I studied the neurobiology of aggression underlying the choice between fight or flight, I ventured into behavioral ecology to understand how animals decide whether to stay or to go and I also delved into the evolution of cooperation which influences the decisions of whether to cooperate or to defect.

      Methods used include a number of behavioral and physiological paradigms in various invertebrate and vertebrate model systems, in vitro conditioning of isolated nervous systems, opto- and electrophysiology, mutants/transgenes, molecular biology and some pharmacology. Computer modeling of simple networks complements the experimental work.

    • Projects

      1. Operant learning: The neurobiology of spontaneous behavior and how its consequences feed back to modify behavioral choice.
      2. Composite learning: The neurobiology of how operant and classical components interact in realistic learning situations to accomplish the generation effect and prevent premature habit formation.

    • Publications

      • Brembs B, Christiansen F, Pflüger H, Duch C. Flight initiation and maintenance deficits in flies with genetically altered biogenic amine levels. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 27 (41) , 11122-31 (2007) PubMed ID:(17928454)

      • Maye A, Hsieh C, Sugihara G, Brembs B. Order in spontaneous behavior. PLoS ONE 2 (5) , e443 (2007) (Epub 16 May 2007) PubMed ID:(17505542)

      • Phillips A, Smart R, Strauss R, Brembs B, Kelly L. The Drosophila black enigma: the molecular and behavioural characterization of the black1 mutant allele. Gene 351 , 131-42 (2005) PubMed ID:(15878647)

      • Brembs B. Operant conditioning in invertebrates. Current opinion in neurobiology 13 (6) , 710-7 (2003) PubMed ID:(14662373)

      • Baier A, Wittek B, Brembs B. Drosophila as a new model organism for the neurobiology of aggression? The Journal of experimental biology 205 (Pt 9) , 1233-40 (2002) PubMed ID:(11948200)

      view all
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