After finishing my PhD studies in Japan, I started my journey in Australia in 2013 with 9 months job contract at UWA and expected going back to Japan after that. However, I have been lucky enough to continue enjoying science here and Aussie life, e.g. encountering beautiful wildlife, chilling out at beaches as well as winery hopping.
My research interest is understanding of how a brain works; how it processes sensory inputs at single neuron level and generates behavioural outcome in invertebrates despite only carrying a relatively small number of neurons. Specifically, I have been fascinated by the fact that the visual systems have evolved to extract ecologically relevant information, to adapt the specific habitat, and to perform species-specific outstanding behaviour such as pursuing a small moving object in hoverflies.
Currently, I have been working on to reconstruct the view of male hoverflies when they are pursuing a moving target (bead) based on their 3D flight trajectory data provided by Malin. The reconstructed view will contain the information of the target, which projected onto the eye as a small moving object, and the optic flow. I will use it as visual stimuli to record behavioural responses in tethered hoverflies to test whether it elicits the pursuing behaviour. I hope I can share some videos of my experiments next time.