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Research

African elephants can frequently pull all-nighters by remaining awake for more than 36 h and can survive for days with as little as 2.1 h of sleep a day. Also, migratory birds, killer whale mothers, and humans experiencing manic episodes demonstrate a similar lack of sleep. Intriguingly, such long periods of wakefulness don’t have a debilitating effect on physiological functions. We are interested in understanding how the basic function of sleep, a highly conserved behavior across evolution, modifies when animals remain awake for extended periods. We utilize the genetically tractable model organism Drosophila melanogaster and employ a combination of genetic, molecular, and imaging techniques to study the adaptive role of sleep in cognitive functions such as learning and memory.

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The appetitive memory trace in mushroom body neurons in the Drosophila brain is shown in green, while the background is red. 

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