Aktueller Vortrag

14.01.2026: Keram Pfeiffer (Univ. of Würzburg, DE): Neurothology of spatial orientation in insects,  HS 02.11, Institut für Biologie, Bereich Zoologie, Universitätsplatz 2, 13:15 Uhr

The ability of animals to orient in space is the most fundamental and vital prerequisite for any goal-directed behavior. Although the brain of insects is much smaller, a lot less complex, and has about 100,000 times fewer neurons than the human brain, insects are capable of astounding navigational feats. Social insects like bees use path integration to find their way back to the nest after a foraging trip. This requires them to constantly measure and integrate the direction and velocity of their locomotion to calculate the shortest way to the nest. In recent years, the neuronal machinery underlying path integration has been identified in the central complex, a group of neuropils in the middle of the insect brain.
In my talk, I will present a broad overview of visual pathways that are involved in spatial orientation and present recent electrophysiological findings from different neurons of the central complex that are likely to be involved in path integration. I will focus on neurons that encode head direction using sky compass cues and neurons that are likely involved in the measurement of distances. I will furthermore address the implications of temperature changes on the encoding of these neurons.