Main research interests:
• Role of neural and network activity on behavioural responses, with particular interest to
neural circuits involved in attention, novelty-induced behaviour, and learning and memory
• The proximate and ultimate causes of determined coping strategies
• The environmental factors determining inter-individual variability in coping strategies
Why am I a behavioural biologist?
My interest has always been animal behaviour: a childish fascination for this amazing kaleidoscope of behavioural patterns that the animal kingdom has developed (and is constantly developing) to get its way through natural selection. At first, the interest is mainly at the observational level, but very soon one asks himself: Why? How? These two questions can also be indicated as ultimate (why?) and proximate (how?) causes of behaviour and have been more explicitly formulated by the Nobel Prize Laureates Niko Tinberger in his 4 questions (or categories of explanations) of animal behaviour (which were based on Aristotle's four types of causes):
-Function: Which is the function?
-Phylogeny: How did it evolve throughout the phylogeny of the species?
-Causation: Which are the underlying mechanisms and elicitors?
-Development: Does (and if yes how) ontogeny play a role?
These questions are the driving forces of ethology, the so called European school of animal behaviour. Ethology was the only reason because I studied biology (in one of the few universities in which Italian ethology was grounded). Fortuity and opportunity, as always in life, made such that I then focused my research to answer the third of the Tinberger’s questions, causation. At its extremes: the molecular bases of behaviour. To say the truth, big part of my research in the last years has been targeted more at looking for the role, at the behavioural level, of particular molecules, rather than at looking for the mechanisms underlying behaviour (the inversion of the object from behaviour to molecule has not only to do with syntax, but it most importantly affects the way to do research). But also when the interest is only focused at the causation of behaviour, it is still of paramount importance to take in consideration the other three levels of explanation, and in particular function and development. For a very simple reason: when studying whether and how a determined molecule controls behaviour, the function and ontogeny of the behavioural patterns analyzed should be known, so that they can be controlled (and eventually manipulated) in the experimental design. Even in neurosciences, in which most behavioural studies in animals are meant to provide insight into mechanisms which should be generalized to other species (and in particular to humans), the clear understanding of the function, development and phylogeny of the behaviour of interest is crucial for formulating the appropriate hypothesis and correct conclusions. Thus, I believe that an ethological and evolutionary perspective to the study of behaviour is a MUST also when the animal (in most cases a rodent) is used as cheap and easy laboratory model while the real interest and goal is the understanding of humans or their diseases. For these reasons, my research has always been characterized by the use of an ethological perspective (which does not mean that I did ethological experiments!). I applied this approach to the behavioural study of numerous transgenic and mutant mice (some people like to call it “phenotyping”). But I also had some time to study behaviour in wild type mice, trying to understand how (ultimate causes) and why (proximate causes) totally opposite coping strategies may developed even within an inbred population.
Why do I work at ENP?
Besides the very nice colleagues, the group of Dirk Isbrandt offers the ideal methodological and theoretical environment to go back to the four Tinberger’s questions and investigate the proximate and ultimate causes of behaviour, thanks to some of the most sophisticated methods now available in neurosciences. The targeted manipulation of the biophysical properties of specific neuron subpopulation in restricted brain areas, together with the recording of neural and network activities while animals freely behave are the tools that every behavioural biologist dreams of. Thus, I think that at ENP I can finally do behavioural experiments to study behaviour (its proximate and ultimate causes) and not only “use” behaviour as a “mouse phenotyping” method (which is also very interesting when the mouse models are well targeted to test specific hypotheses, as it is at ENP).
Last but not least: the ENP is structurally linked to the Pediatric Clinic of the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf. This is not by chance: one of the foundation’s aims of ENP is to tightly link basic and clinical research to provide treatments to some human diseases such as neonatal epilepsy. Somehow, I feel much better doing science in a group with this scope, it makes me think that I do this job not only for my personal fun. And it helps a lot when I must explain to other people (or to the friends of my kids!) what I do and why I “use” those poor little mice.
• Role of neural and network activity on behavioural responses, with particular interest to
neural circuits involved in attention, novelty-induced behaviour, and learning and memory
• The proximate and ultimate causes of determined coping strategies
• The environmental factors determining inter-individual variability in coping strategies
Why am I a behavioural biologist?
My interest has always been animal behaviour: a childish fascination for this amazing kaleidoscope of behavioural patterns that the animal kingdom has developed (and is constantly developing) to get its way through natural selection. At first, the interest is mainly at the observational level, but very soon one asks himself: Why? How? These two questions can also be indicated as ultimate (why?) and proximate (how?) causes of behaviour and have been more explicitly formulated by the Nobel Prize Laureates Niko Tinberger in his 4 questions (or categories of explanations) of animal behaviour (which were based on Aristotle's four types of causes):
-Function: Which is the function?
-Phylogeny: How did it evolve throughout the phylogeny of the species?
-Causation: Which are the underlying mechanisms and elicitors?
-Development: Does (and if yes how) ontogeny play a role?
These questions are the driving forces of ethology, the so called European school of animal behaviour. Ethology was the only reason because I studied biology (in one of the few universities in which Italian ethology was grounded). Fortuity and opportunity, as always in life, made such that I then focused my research to answer the third of the Tinberger’s questions, causation. At its extremes: the molecular bases of behaviour. To say the truth, big part of my research in the last years has been targeted more at looking for the role, at the behavioural level, of particular molecules, rather than at looking for the mechanisms underlying behaviour (the inversion of the object from behaviour to molecule has not only to do with syntax, but it most importantly affects the way to do research). But also when the interest is only focused at the causation of behaviour, it is still of paramount importance to take in consideration the other three levels of explanation, and in particular function and development. For a very simple reason: when studying whether and how a determined molecule controls behaviour, the function and ontogeny of the behavioural patterns analyzed should be known, so that they can be controlled (and eventually manipulated) in the experimental design. Even in neurosciences, in which most behavioural studies in animals are meant to provide insight into mechanisms which should be generalized to other species (and in particular to humans), the clear understanding of the function, development and phylogeny of the behaviour of interest is crucial for formulating the appropriate hypothesis and correct conclusions. Thus, I believe that an ethological and evolutionary perspective to the study of behaviour is a MUST also when the animal (in most cases a rodent) is used as cheap and easy laboratory model while the real interest and goal is the understanding of humans or their diseases. For these reasons, my research has always been characterized by the use of an ethological perspective (which does not mean that I did ethological experiments!). I applied this approach to the behavioural study of numerous transgenic and mutant mice (some people like to call it “phenotyping”). But I also had some time to study behaviour in wild type mice, trying to understand how (ultimate causes) and why (proximate causes) totally opposite coping strategies may developed even within an inbred population.
Why do I work at ENP?
Besides the very nice colleagues, the group of Dirk Isbrandt offers the ideal methodological and theoretical environment to go back to the four Tinberger’s questions and investigate the proximate and ultimate causes of behaviour, thanks to some of the most sophisticated methods now available in neurosciences. The targeted manipulation of the biophysical properties of specific neuron subpopulation in restricted brain areas, together with the recording of neural and network activities while animals freely behave are the tools that every behavioural biologist dreams of. Thus, I think that at ENP I can finally do behavioural experiments to study behaviour (its proximate and ultimate causes) and not only “use” behaviour as a “mouse phenotyping” method (which is also very interesting when the mouse models are well targeted to test specific hypotheses, as it is at ENP).
Last but not least: the ENP is structurally linked to the Pediatric Clinic of the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf. This is not by chance: one of the foundation’s aims of ENP is to tightly link basic and clinical research to provide treatments to some human diseases such as neonatal epilepsy. Somehow, I feel much better doing science in a group with this scope, it makes me think that I do this job not only for my personal fun. And it helps a lot when I must explain to other people (or to the friends of my kids!) what I do and why I “use” those poor little mice.