Home

The proprioceptive system endows animals with an ability to sense body position.  This sense is often taken for granted in our daily lives, in that we "intuitively" know where our hands and legs are as we move about, but this information is provided by an array of proprioceptive sensory neurons that are precisely positioned to detect body movements.  This capacity is critically required not only for limbed organisms but also for animals with soft bodies such as Drosophila larvae, which we use as a model to study the functional organization of proprioceptive systems.

We are interested in mechanisms of interoception. The sensing of internal body status is essential for proper functioning of organ systems. In contrast to signals from the classical senses, such as touch, vision, and taste, which have been studied in detail, we are only beginning to understand the sensory circuits that monitor and modulate internal body organs. We study the functions of internal sensory neurons in Drosophila larvae, focusing on neurons that innervate the respiratory system.