We are pleased to announce an upcoming research talk by Associate Professor Gal Haspel from the Department of Biological Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The talk will take place on Wednesday, August 27, 2025, from 17:00 to 18:00 at IST104-LL.
Talk Overview:
Locomotion is a fundamental behavior driven by the nervous systems of all animals. To uncover how neural networks generate locomotor behavior, Prof. Haspel and his team investigate the neurobiology of movement in the nematode C. elegans.
With 75 neurons connected to 75 body wall muscle cells, the locomotion network of C. elegans produces its characteristic dorsoventral undulatory wave. In this talk, Prof. Haspel will discuss experimental and computational approaches that shed light on the network’s pattern-generation organization, the role of inhibition, and its resilience to neuronal injury.
The presentation will conclude with insights from a collaborative effort to reverse-engineer a nervous system and the search for a Global Motor Prediction Error signal—a key to understanding predictive motor control.
This is an excellent opportunity to explore how simple nervous systems reveal fundamental principles of locomotion and resilience. Don’t miss it.
