Emily L. Heckman

The paper identifies visual inputs to Kenyon cells in Drosophila mushroom bodies, showing sparse, distributed, and combinatorial coding similar to olfactory coding but with distinct input repertoires.

The paper investigates how presynaptic contact and activity opposingly regulate postsynaptic dendrite outgrowth during neural circuit development in Drosophila.

The paper shows that astrocytes transfer mitochondria to neurons during activity to support metabolic needs, and disrupting this process causes motor deficits.

The paper demonstrates that tonic spiking in one neuron of an electrically coupled pair induces long-term potentiation of electrical synapses, with asymmetry and calcium dependence.

The paper investigates how synaptic connections in Drosophila are formed through partner-derived cues, global positional cues, and synaptic activity, showing that all three contribute to proper circuit assembly.

The paper investigates how axon guidance cues determine subcellular synapse specificity in Drosophila neurons, showing that these cues, not distinct dendritic domains, dictate synaptic connections.

The paper identifies Tjp1b as an intracellular scaffold required for electrical synapse formation and shows its asymmetric localization and function at the postsynaptic side.