Instructive role of the Brain in timing development – TimeDev

Juvenile to adult maturation transition (JMT) is an essential event in the lifespan of any organism, in which sexual and somatic maturation is achieved. In recent years, lots of scientific efforts have focused on understanding the mechanism controlling the onset of puberty since a trend for an earlier initiation has been documented. We have recently found a conserved brain regulation of steroid hormones production between mammals and Drosophila timing this transition. I propose to use the fly model, which offers a sophisticated genetics toolbox, to determine the concerted action of internal-tissues signals and external environmental cues in activating the brain circuitry thereby triggering puberty. For this propose, I will conduct a large-scale functional screen aim to identify proteins involved in the brain-reception of signals, and I will perform a connectome analyses to identify the complex brain circuitry involved in the instructive role of the brain in triggering JMT.