Current Research
Mentor: Josie Clowney, PhD
Vanessa Puñal is examining the development of the brain circuits underlying sensory perception. Brains are wired to detect an ever-changing buffet of sounds, sights, and smells – and to tell them all apart. Like mixing primary colors to paint a rainbow, brain circuits can code for such a wide range of stimuli by mixing and matching inputs from a much smaller number of sensory receptors. In tracking how such a wiring pattern emerges in developing fruit fly brains, Puñal hopes to uncover insights about the organization of sensory perception more broadly.