About Program
This is part of its efforts to popularize science to the general public and students who are pursuing science as their career. TNSF attempt to focus on students on higher science as everyone knows that learning of science at college within the curriculum is not enough to acquire holistic knowledge of science at the appropriate time. Hence, to fill the gap between what students are acquiring through the curriculum and what it is required, TNSF is planning its activities on higher science to students who are pursuing higher education.
About the Lecture Almost everything we do – how we react to circumstances, how we behave, and how we interact with the people around us – are influenced by our emotions. How emotions and internal motivations influence our reactivity to external cues, and in turn how they drive our behaviours are fundamental questions that need answering using simple systems. How did emotions evolve? What functions do they serve? Importantly, how can we use the genetic and molecular tools available in invertebrates like Drosophila, zebrafish and C. elegans to dissect the neural circuitry and molecular mechanisms of emotions and internal states? These are some of the questions I will explore in the talk. My hope is that the audience can take home a workable definition of emotion, can appreciate how primitive states in “simpler” animals like flies and worms can be used to ask bigger questions about emotions and motivated behaviours, and can appreciate the need to answer these fundamental questions towards our collective human quest to understand how the brain works.
