BYB Summer Camp Internships: Cort Turns Up for Optogenetics

My name is Cort Thompson and I’m one of the incredibly privileged interns working at Backyard Brains this summer. I’m an undergraduate neuroscience student at Michigan State University and this summer I am working to bring the cutting edge technique of optogenetics to the classroom while also observing the courtship behaviors and gustatory system of fruit flies as well as attempting to map the neural circuitry responsible for the regulation of the proboscis extension reflex.

First, I think a little bit of background information on optogenetics (more…)