Max S. Farnworth

The paper compares the evolutionary changes in the central complex and mushroom bodies across Heliconiini butterflies, finding conservation in the central complex and expansion in the mushroom bodies linked to foraging behavior.

The paper investigates how visual behaviour in Heliconius butterflies evolved through changes in mushroom body structure without increased investment in visual pathways.

Heliconius butterflies retain odour associations over eight days no better than outgroup Heliconiini, contrasting with their superior visual long-term memory, consistent with a modality-specific memory enhancement.

The paper examines how mushroom body circuits in Heliconiini butterflies evolve, finding that some Kenyon cell populations expand faster than others, linked to behavioral changes, while dopaminergic neuron numbers remain conserved.

The paper creates an atlas of the developing Tribolium castaneum brain and compares it to Drosophila melanogaster, finding conserved anatomy but divergent developmental timing.

The paper identifies foxQ2 as a key regulator of midline brain structures in Tribolium castaneum, showing its role in the development of the central complex and linking it to an ancestral neuroendocrine center.