BIO

I am a first year undergraduate originally from Texas and I want to pursue a career of medical research. Particularly, I am interested in fields such as cancer research and the brain. I hope to make a contribution in the medical field through meaningful research. Outside of school, I play the piano and violin and enjoy playing sports.

Modeling Neural Circuits to Understand Incipient Speciation Part 2: Quantifying the Potential for Cryptic Evolution

Abstract

As a certain species evolves over time, their neural circuits, or the structure of how neurons are arranged by synapses for a function, also evolve. However, evolution of neural circuits may also inhibit evolution, and in this project, we are exploring the aspects of neural circuits in chorus frogs to take note of the relationship between evolution and neural circuits. We are analyzing frogs from the southeast region of the United States, and conducting code programs that compute likelihood scores of breeding compatibility and success between frogs from different or individual states, such as Alabama and Florida. Programming in R and MatLab allows us to visualize data that represent certain parameters and allows us to extract likelihood scores that we could use when evaluating chorus frogs’ breeding behaviors. We visualize data using programs such as Microsoft Excel in order to get a better picture of what the code shows us. We have found a method to quantify the degree to which those different peaks are connected by models (parameter sets) that also fit the behavioral data. Recognizing the correlation between neural circuits and evolution allows us to predict and analyze evolution patterns in other species, and results from this project paves a way for future endeavors in the field of evolution and neuroscience.

Keywords: evolution, speciation, brain