Professor Barry Dickson and his lab use molecular genetic techniques to study the function of neural circuits in Drosophila (fruit fly). One of their primary aims is to establish how innate behaviors are hard-wired into the nervous system, and how these pre-programmed behaviors are modified by experience. The behavior of focus is fly courtship, an innate but tractable set of responses and actions required for successful mating (not just in flies...!) 

To break the subject down further, Dickson presented the lab's work that mostly concerns the neural circuitry of the male fruit fly.

The Dickson lab had previously found a gene necessary for male fruit fly courtship behavior: Fruitless. This gene seemed to be in control of the fly mating ritual, consisting of a display which can be vaguely seen in the photo of his title slide. The behavior involves a series of wing movements and vibrations which, if listened to at the right frequency, can be heard as a 'song'. 

To demonstrate the importance of the fruitless gene in fly courtship behavior, the Dickson lab expressed the fruitless gene product — FruM protein — in females...

Above: Still of video footage featuring observation chambers containing a wild-type male and female (left) and FruM female and wild-type female (right). The footage of the male and female is in play and it is clear the male is very interested in his companion of the opposite sex; he follows her around the chamber, his wings beating his song of seduction. In the still, the footage of the FruM female and wild-type female is not yet in play, but after Dickson hit the play button, the FruM female behaved in a manner almost identical to the male on the left. So how is FruM actually involved in this behavior?

After locating all one hundred types of FruM positive neuron (above) Anne von Philipsborn, a post doctoral researcher in Dickson's lab, utilized clever molecular genetics to home-in on the neurons specifically involved in fly courtship; this involved the separate activation of individual neurons by selectively expressing thermosensitive FruM in them one at a time, then turning up the heat...

By expressing thermosensitive FruM in each neuron-type in isolation, she was able to identify the most important one for fly courtship behavior:

Plus a handful of important subsidiary ones:

Recent work from Dickson's lab has also discovered how the male neurocircuitry responds to female (and male) pheromones as a stimulus for courtship behavior. Females give off the aphrodisiac pheromone 7,11-heptacosadiene (7,11-HD) whereas males emit the passion-killing pheromones cis-vaccenyl actetate (cVA) and 7-tricosene (7-T).

These pheromones are detected by distinct sets of neurons...