A Rainbow of Nervous Impulses

For animals and humans, the ability to respond to the environment is critically dependent on the nervous system. Yet neuroscientists don’t totally understand the mechanisms by which neural information (example: heat from a stove) is translated into specific behaviors (pulling your hand away). Georgia State’s Cox Lab, led by associate professor Daniel Cox, is working to illuminate how neurons process sensory information by studying a particular type of sensory neuron in fruit flies. Why fruit flies? Genetically, they’re surprisingly similar to people. This image was created using a 3-D optical imaging technique and depicts neuronal projections — tendril-like extensions of the neuron along which impulses are transmitted — in a living fruit fly.

Image from Daniel N. Cox and Atit A. Patel