Webinar: How to start research on a new animal model?

Mice, fruit flies or flatworms have their advantages – but there are limits of what you can achieve with standard animal models.

Neuroscience is currently becoming more and more open to studying new species – and whole new groups of animals. Bats are used to understand how brain represents space in three dimensions, nightingales allow us to learn more about motor learning, and mysterious marine Ctenophores are redefining our notion of how nervous system may look like.

But approaching a new model system is not easy. First of all: how to properly choose a species for your research question? Where to look, and where to learn what is possible and what is not? And how to approach your research when you start, what to pay attention to, where to find your community, and if it doesn’t exist – how to create one? You may face similar problems when you switch from one standard model to another.

During this webinar we will try to approach those questions. We will share practical advice on how to select a proper model, how to learn about its ecology and behaviour and how to avoid common pitfalls.

The webinar will be conducted by Mateusz Kostecki, postdoc at Jekely Lab at Heidelberg University. Mateusz works on Placoza clade of nerveless animals, with forays into work on flatworms and annelids. His backround is traditional rodent systems neuroscience – mice and rats. He also worked with fruit flies, birds and human babies.