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Schleyer Lab
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The lab seeks to understand learning and decision-making through the small brain of the Drosophila larva.
AboutAbout the lab
What an insect thinks with its small brain
The Schleyer Lab is an international research team that studies learning and memory, decision-making, and movement.
The brain is one of the greatest unknowns, and much remains unknown about how it controls the body and behavior.
The lab therefore focuses on the brain of a small, simple invertebrate: the larva of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. It has only about 10,000 neurons, and genetic tools are available that allow neural circuits to be analyzed at the level of single cells.
Through research that could be called "insect psychology," the lab approaches the question of what a small insect thinks with its simple brain.
Key terms
- dopaminergic neurons
- Nerve cells that transmit reward and punishment signals. They are closely involved in learning and in switching between behaviors.
- optogenetics
- A method of controlling the activity of target neurons by making them express light-responsive proteins and then shining light on them.
- connectome
- A complete map of the connections among the neurons in the brain.
NewsLab news
Master's student wins Best Presentation Award at the master's research presentation
Paper on relative value learning published in Proceedings of the Royal Society
Undergraduate student wins Best Poster Award at the graduation research presentation
Peer-reviewed preprint on the individual roles of dopaminergic neurons released on eLife
Paper from a collaboration with Leipzig University published in Cell Reports
ResearchResearch themes
The lab believes that the main job of the brain is to enable an animal to do the right thing at the right time. Because the human brain is far too large and complex, the lab first seeks to understand the much simpler insect brain, using larvae of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
*Illustrative imageLearning That Reward or Punishment Is "Not Coming"
Animals learn not only from stimuli that predict reward or punishment, but also from stimuli that predict their absence. The lab found that the same reward dopaminergic neurons can induce both kinds of learning, and it is now systematically investigating punishment dopaminergic neurons by combining optogenetics, behavioral tracking, and connectome analysis.
*Illustrative imageHow Long Memory Lasts
The mechanisms that determine how long a memory is retained matter greatly in real life, from students trying to memorize material for exams to older adults struggling with dementia. The lab examines whether substances such as sugar and artificial sweeteners change how long larval memories last, and investigates the neural circuits behind this.
*Illustrative imageDetailed Analysis of Behavior
To understand how neural circuits change behavior, it is essential to be able to analyze behavior in detail. Together with computer science researchers and students, the lab develops software for video tracking and behavioral analysis of larvae, aiming to gain a new understanding of locomotion and goal-directed behavior.
*Illustrative imageLearning About Amino Acids
Amino acids are nutrients essential for building proteins, but it is not well understood how animals use past experience to find amino-acid-rich food. The lab found that larvae form, in parallel, memories of opposite value that are retrieved differently depending on the current situation, and it aims to uncover the neural circuits involved.
MembersFaculty
The Schleyer Lab consists of faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students.As of 2026
- Assistant ProfessorMichael Schleyer
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Birth of a Fruit Fly” Medora Kea / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Learning That Reward or Punishment Is "Not Coming": “Dopamin” Doc. RNDr. Josef Reischig, CSc. / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
- How Long Memory Lasts: “Granulated White Sugar with Large Crystals, Bright Side Light” Tobias Erbsland / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Detailed Analysis of Behavior: “Code on computer monitor (Unsplash)” Markus Spiske markusspiske / CC0 (cropped)
- Learning About Amino Acids: “Beta-alaniini kristallid polariseeritud valguses” Janeklass / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Tanaka Lab): “Drosophila melanogaster 53362116” Alexis / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Ogawa Lab (Systems Neurobiology)): “African.field.cricket.arp” Arpingstone / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Wada Lab (Molecular Neuroethology)): “Zebra Finch, Sumba, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia 1” christoph_moning / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Takeuchi Lab): “Lepidiolamprologus nkambae LoroParqueTenerife cichlidae from nkambae IMG 5391” Bjoertvedt / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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