DONALD WLODKOWIC LAB
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR | ECOTOXICOLOGY | NEUROBIOLOGY
RESEARCH FOCUS OF OUR LAB
Our research is deeply interdisciplinary, converging at the intersection of eco-neurotoxicology, animal behavior, and experimental neurobiology.
Beyond merely examining how chemicals influence animal behavior, our inquiry extends to understanding the responses of organisms with rudimentary nervous systems and even aneural lifeforms to environmental cues and stimuli. We are intrigued by the mechanisms underlying their ability to learn and form basic memories.
Unraveling these fundamental processes will enable us to explore how psychoactive drugs, neurotoxins, or industrial pollutants can modulate these simple cognitive functions.
BEHAVIOURAL PERTURBATIONS INDUCED BY EMERGING POLLUTANTS
Waterway pollution from emerging contaminants like psychoactive pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, and neurotoxic industrial chemicals is on the rise globally.
Despite being recognized as a potentially significant environmental risk factor, it importance remains poorly understood.
Our research delves into the potential of emerging pollutants to disrupt behavior, thereby compromising the ecological fitness of exposed animals.
Within our group, investigations focus on various aspects, including innate animal activity, exploratory behaviors, foraging patterns, anxiety levels, phototactic and thermal preferences, as well as memory and learning processes.
We employ diverse model organisms ranging from invertebrates to fish and amphibians to explore the effects of these pollutants on behaviour.
PHOTOTACTIC BEHAVIOURS
Phototactic behaviors play a crucial role in the survival of numerous species, including zooplankton crustaceans, insects, fish, and amphibians.
From an eco-neurotoxicology standpoint, the investigation of phototaxis offers invaluable insights into the effects of toxicants on central nervous systems.
Despite the widespread occurrence of phototactic traits across diverse species, there exists a notable gap in our understanding of how anthropogenic contaminants influence these behaviors.
THERMAL PREFERENCE BEHAVIOURS
The study of animal thermal preferences holds significant importance in ecology and evolutionary biology. Thermotaxis encompasses temperature sensing and neuronal data processing, crucial for the dynamic thermal adaptations of aquatic animals.
In our lab, research focuses on the largely unexplored toxicological dimension: how pollutants may disrupt thermal preference behaviors in aquatic organisms.
Understanding such perturbations is vital for the ecological survival of numerous species.
MEMORY & LEARNING IN SIMPLE LIFEFORMS
A hallmark of lifeforms is their remarkable ability to express preferences and acquire knowledge from experiences, enabling learning and adaptation to new environments.
Paradoxically, our understanding of basal cognition and levels of biological intelligence in animals with primitive nervous systems remains the most sparse, highlighting a significant gap in our knowledge. Our research endeavors to shed light on memory and learning processes in simple organisms, including planarian flatworms, insects, and larval stages of fish and amphibians.
Unraveling the capacity of simple nervous systems, with limited biocomputational abilities, to facilitate memory formation is pivotal for advancing new frontiers in experimental zoology, neurotoxicology, and neuropharmacology.
MEMORIES OUTSIDE OF THE BRAIN
Can memories transcend the confines of the brain, relocating within the body, only to reintegrate during brain regeneration? Can memory be inherited across generations or transplanted to different bodies? While these questions may seem like plotlines from a science fiction novel, reports suggest that some trained memories exhibit resilience even amidst brain amputation, as seen in planarian flatworms.
Our research endeavors to delve into this intriguing phenomenon of potential somatic storage of memory engrams and their subsequent imprinting on the regenerating brain. By exploring these uncharted territories, our work has the potential to unlock new avenues for the application of memory-enhancing chemicals in the context of memory resilience and brain regeneration.
BEHAVIOUR OF SYNTHETIC LIFEFORMS
Novel lifeforms, often referred to as synthetic living machines, biobots, or xenobots, have recently emerged through the integration of synthetic biology and bioengineering toolboxes, aided by artificial intelligence (AI). Created de novo, outside of conventional evolutionary pathways, these synthetic living machines exhibit many unexpected biological characteristics.
Fascinatingly, their novel behavioral traits, sensing mechanisms, decision-making processes, and proto-cognitive capacities remain largely unexplored, representing an emergent field in behavioral and synthetic biology.
In collaboration with the Levin's Lab @ Tufts University we aim to investigate the innate and sensory-motor behavioral abilities of biobots at both the individual and collective levels. This project holds profound significance for advancements in applied fields such as biocybernetics, artificial intelligence, biocomputing, and neuropharmacology.