The findings – gleaned from work on the fruit fly Drosophila – have broad implications for understanding how innate behaviors such as mating, migrating, and hibernating are stimulated by environmental cues. Dan Stoleru, the lead author of the Cell paper and a postdoctoral fellow in Rosbash’s laboratory at Brandeis University, adds that the study reveals insights into possible causes of seasonal depression as well as other forms of mood disorders that respond to light therapy.
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Rosbash is a leader in the field of circadian research. For the past 25 years he has been defining the machinery that underlies the nearly universal pattern of circadian rhythms in insects, animals, and humans. He employs the tools of Drosophila genetics to understand how the circadian clock ticks and which master neural circuits underlie circadian activity patterns.