Fathima Mukthar Iqbal
Research Interest
Fathima’s interest lies in studying the neural circuits underlying the plethora of behaviours displayed by animals. She is especially fascinated by how different complex behaviours are adapted to changes in the environment.
The fact that the basic units of the brain are separate, discrete cells was still debatable in the late nineteenth century, although vast advances had already been made in understanding many other physiological aspects of our body. What makes the brain so difficult to decipher is its anatomical and functional complexity. One approach to understanding the functional principles of the organ that determines who we are and how we perceive and interact with the world is to study numerically simpler brains, which are nonetheless capable of producing and controlling complex behaviours.
Currently, Fathima is studying the descending pathways that convey information about the environment from sensory organs and central brain circuits to lower motor centers in flies, with a focus on how these descending pathways control and execute locomotion. At present, she is building different setups and standardizing protocols that will allow her to optogenetically manipulate various descending neurons to study more closely the flexible control of locomotion in flies and she is in absolute awe of it. Once our protocols and setups are established, Fathima’s experiments will help us develop a better understanding of how descending pathways modify and direct the ongoing behaviour.
Fathima hails from the southern part of India. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Botany and Biotechnology from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala and a master’s degree in Biotechnology from the Cochin University of Science and Technology. She completed her Master’s thesis with the guidance of Dr. Gaurav Das, National Center for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune. She continued the work at the NCCS with the same group before moving to Würzburg to embark on her PhD project.
P.S: Fathima considers reading literary fiction as her sport and was delighted to find out about the big library on the campus in Würzburg. Recently, she has also re-invented her interest in gaming.
