Insect Neurobiology and Neuroecology laboratory (INN Lab)

The Insect Neurobiology and Neuroecology laboratory (INN Lab) has been recently developed by the collaboration between the Research and Innovation Centre of the Edmund Mach Foundation and the Centre for Mind and Brain Sciences.  It’s currently under construction and it will be part of Manifattura Tabacchi Laboratories  in Rovereto.
The aim of the lab is to investigate neurophysiological  bases of  animal/environment interactions and, in particular, the intraspecific and interspecific communication in insects. The mission is to acquire base knowledge on the mechanisms of sensory information and their transduction into output behaviours.  Research will be conducted using  both behavioural and neurobiological  techniques in order to unravel also cognitive function of the brain such as learning and memory.  Insects might be, in fact, useful models to understand mechanisms and functioning common to all animal species. Furthermore the acquired knowledge will supply new methods of interference and disruption in applied agriculture and for getting ready insect biosensors of diseases.
The lab will focus its research interests mainly in pollinator insects with different social structures such as honey bees and bumble bees that are key model species in neuroscience as well as grapevine and codling moths and vectors of diseases species  that will provide suitable models to study different aspects of insect communication. The staff will be involved in studying how the odour and sound information are coded in the insect brain and how the neurophysiological activity is linked with the behaviours.

Resources

The lab will be provided with facilities that allow to conduct both classical ethological assays and neurobiological investigations. Classical conditioning techniques will be exploited to study learning and memory retention. The peripheral specificity of signal detection will be characterized by recording responses to the sensory areas of the insects as well as by testing the animal in wind tunnel and Y shape mazes using stimuli with different biological role. Central neurophysiological processes will be described by means of optical imaging techniques and intracellular recordings.

INNLAB members

• Gianfranco Anfora (Director of the Lab, FEM)
• Giorgio Vallortigara (CIMeC, director of the ACN Lab)
• Valeria Sovrano (CIMeC)
• Elisa Frasnelli (visiting scientist, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology, Wien)
• Federica Trona (FEM)
• Valerio Mazzoni (FEM)
• Anna Eriksson (PhD Student, FEM)
• Elisa Rigosi (PhD Student, CIMeC and FEM)