Lucía Prieto Godino, the scientist who has transferred conduct from one species to a different | Science | EUROtoday

The mind of a fly is the scale of a grain of sand, however the Spanish neuroscientist Lucía Prieto Godino is satisfied that this tiny organ hides keys to the colossal human nervous system, able to creating Don Quixotethe smallpox vaccine and the pyramid of Cheops. The researcher, born in Madrid 42 years in the past, directs her personal laboratory on the Francis Crick Institute in London, devoted to finding out neuronal circuits: the connections between cells on which ideas, recollections and behaviors rely. “In recent years we have learned a lot about how the brain works, but we still understand almost nothing about how it evolves. That is the big question in our laboratory,” he proclaims.

The query is transcendental. The brains of an individual, a seahorse, a wasp, a goat or a toucan are as completely different as their behaviors. They are so completely different that it’s impracticable to check them and draw conclusions. Prieto Godino has chosen to look at a lot nearer and less complicated animals: completely different species of flies that, at first look, seem similar, however act in very alternative ways. “It’s not that we are interested in what flies do. If we find out how their brains evolve, we will be one step closer to understanding how our own brain evolves,” emphasizes the neuroscientist, sitting on the Arganzuela Monumental Bridge, a Madrid walkway whose form, a double steel spiral, is paying homage to the construction of DNA. It is his lifelong neighborhood.

Modern neuroscience, with a century and a half of historical past, continues to be in its infancy. The first full map of an animal mind, introduced in 2023, was that of the fruit fly larva. One of its major authors was one other Spanish researcher within the United Kingdom, Albert Cardona, from the legendary Cambridge Molecular Biology Laboratory, with 16 Nobel-winning scientists, eight instances greater than all of Spain. That pioneering atlas uncovered a construction with simply 3,000 neurons and half 1,000,000 connections between them. A yr later, a world consortium achieved the primary map of an grownup mind: that of the fruit fly itself, with 140,000 neurons and about 55 million connections between them. They are main advances that dwarf the large pending problem, 1,000,000 instances extra complicated: the human mind, with 86 billion neurons and trillions of connections between them.

“We want to understand how neural circuits evolve: how different animals can have different brains and different behaviors,” says Prieto Godino, additionally founding father of TReND, an NGO that helps African scientists. The researcher has chosen two species of flies separated by 10 million years of evolution: the fruit fly or Drosophila melanogasterwho eats no matter they throw at him; and a West African relative that feeds virtually completely on the fruits of a shrub endemic to the area, the Drosophila erecta. By evaluating the maps of their brains, Prieto Godino’s group has noticed that their completely different behaviors will not be as a consequence of a change in the kind of neurons, and even of their quantity, however quite in how they join with one another, particularly at some vital factors.

A group of Japanese researchers made an astonishing announcement in August 2025. The group, from Nagoya University, managed for the primary time to transmit a conduct from one species to a different, by manipulating a single gene. In their case, they detected the genetic key to the fly’s peculiar mating ritual. Drosophila subobscurathrough which the feminine, to simply accept copulation, requires the male to regurgitate meals immediately into her mouth. In the Drosophila melanogaster This innate conduct just isn’t noticed, however courtship is predicated on musicin sounds emitted by males with the vibration of their wings. By activating a grasp gene in sure neurons, Japanese scientists made male Drosophila melanogaster They will start to regurgitate into the females’ mouths earlier than copulating. Their outcomes had been revealed within the journal Scienceone of many leaders of world science.

Lucía Prieto Godino’s laboratory had achieved related success even earlier than, as confirmed by her colleague Albert Cardona. The researcher and her group not solely analyzed why the West African fly has such a powerful desire for a selected fruit, however in addition they managed to switch that capricious predilection. They made the eat all of it fruit fly, Drosophila melanogasterwill change into obsessive about that African fruit, by modifications in his neuronal connections. “We did experiments in which we genetically manipulated flies to try to transfer behavior from one species to another and we succeeded,” says Prieto Godino. Their outcomes haven’t but been revealed in a specialised journal, so they’re pending evaluate by the scientific neighborhood.

The Spanish researcher is conscious of the evolutionary abyss that separates flies from individuals, however she seeks basic ancestral ideas within the group of the mind. “Flies have 75% of the genes that cause diseases in humans,” he argues. History proves him proper. The American Thomas Hunt Morgan started crossbreeding flies in 1909. Drosophila melanogaster to attempt to perceive the mechanisms of inheritance from mother and father to youngsters. In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for demonstrating that genes are saved in chromosomes throughout the nucleus of cells.

There are half a dozen Nobel Prizes awarded to scientists who checked out flies to attempt to perceive human beings. The American Hermann Muller received the 1946 Nobel Prize for locating that X-ray radiation triggered mutations, because of his experiments with flies. In 1995, the German Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and the Americans Edward Lewis and Eric Wieschaus had been awarded the Nobel Prize for illuminating the genetic management of embryonic growth. Again, with flies.

The specimens of Drosophila They had been additionally key within the 2004 awards to the Americans Linda Buck and Richard Axel, for locating the group of the olfactory system. Another compatriot, Jules Hoffmann, investigated how these bugs battle infections and ended up successful the 2011 Nobel Prize for uncovering the intricacies of innate immunity. Finally, North Americans Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young received the 2017 Nobel Prize after discovering, in flies, the molecular mechanisms that management the circadian rhythm, that inner clock that adapts to the pure cycle of sunshine and darkness. With this background, the dimension of the achievement is best appreciated: transferring a conduct from one species to a different, whether or not it’s a predilection for a fruit or courtship with regurgitation.

― Is it conceivable to switch a conduct to a human being?

– That query has two elements. Ethically, no, clearly. Scientifically, it’s one thing that’s so distant… We don’t even perceive properly how the neuronal circuits of the fly work, to know people. You first have to know very properly how every little thing works, earlier than you’ll be able to take into consideration transferring.

“So scientists aren’t going to make us regurgitate before copulating.”

“No, don’t let anyone worry.”