Bio

Tim grew up outside Boston, MA and earned his undergraduate degree at Hamilton College in upstate New York. In his graduate work with Kathy Nagel at NYU, Tim identified neurons in the fly central brain that facilitate airflow-guided orienting behavior. Tim joined the Clandinin Lab in late 2020, where he has been working with Tom to explore how synaptic connectivity, gene expression, and developmental experience work together to define the diverse functional roles of neurons in the fly visual system.

Professional Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy, New York University (2020)
  • Bachelor of Arts, Hamilton College (2009)
  • PhD, New York University, Neural Science (2020)
  • BA, Hamilton College, Neuroscience, Philosophy (2009)

Stanford Advisors

Contact

  • Academic
    currier@stanford.edu
    University - Scholar Department: Department of Neurobiology Position: Postdoctoral Scholar

Additional Info

All Publications

  • Visual processing in the fly, from photoreceptors to behavior. Genetics Currier, T. A., Pang, M. M., Clandinin, T. R. 2023

    Abstract

    Originally a genetic model organism, the experimental use of Drosophila melanogaster has grown to include quantitative behavioral analyses, sophisticated perturbations of neuronal function, and detailed sensory physiology. A highlight of these developments can be seen in the context of vision, where pioneering studies have uncovered fundamental and generalizable principles of sensory processing. Here we begin with an overview of vision-guided behaviors and common methods for probing visual circuits. We then outline the anatomy and physiology of brain regions involved in visual processing, beginning at the sensory periphery and ending with descending motor control. Areas of focus include contrast and motion detection in the optic lobe, circuits for visual feature selectivity, computations in support of spatial navigation, and contextual associative learning. Finally, we look to the future of fly visual neuroscience and discuss promising topics for further study.

    View details for DOI 10.1093/genetics/iyad064

    View details for PubMedID 37128740

  • A neural circuit for wind-guided olfactory navigation. Nature communications Matheson, A. M., Lanz, A. J., Medina, A. M., Licata, A. M., Currier, T. A., Syed, M. H., Nagel, K. I. 2022; 13 (1): 4613

    Abstract

    To navigate towards a food source, animals frequently combine odor cues about source identity with wind direction cues about source location. Where and how these two cues are integrated to support navigation is unclear. Here we describe a pathway to the Drosophila fan-shaped body that encodes attractive odor and promotes upwind navigation. We show that neurons throughout this pathway encode odor, but not wind direction. Using connectomics, we identify fan-shaped body local neurons called h∆C that receive input from this odor pathway and a previously described wind pathway. We show that h∆C neurons exhibit odor-gated, wind direction-tuned activity, that sparse activation of h∆C neurons promotes navigation in a reproducible direction, and that h∆C activity is required for persistent upwind orientation during odor. Based on connectome data, we develop a computational model showing how h∆C activity can promote navigation towards a goal such as an upwind odor source. Our results suggest that odor and wind cues are processed by separate pathways and integrated within the fan-shaped body to support goal-directed navigation.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-32247-7

    View details for PubMedID 35941114

  • Encoding and control of orientation to airflow by a set of Drosophila fan-shaped body neurons. eLife Currier, T. A., Matheson, A. M., Nagel, K. I. 2020; 9

    Abstract

    The insect central complex (CX) is thought to underlie goal-oriented navigation but its functional organization is not fully understood. We recorded from genetically-identified CX cell types in Drosophila and presented directional visual, olfactory, and airflow cues known to elicit orienting behavior. We found that a group of neurons targeting the ventral fan-shaped body (ventral P-FNs) are robustly tuned for airflow direction. Ventral P-FNs did not generate a 'map' of airflow direction. Instead, cells in each hemisphere were tuned to 45° ipsilateral, forming a pair of orthogonal bases. Imaging experiments suggest that ventral P-FNs inherit their airflow tuning from neurons that provide input from the lateral accessory lobe (LAL) to the noduli (NO). Silencing ventral P-FNs prevented flies from selecting appropriate corrective turns following changes in airflow direction. Our results identify a group of CX neurons that robustly encode airflow direction and are required for proper orientation to this stimulus.

    View details for DOI 10.7554/eLife.61510

    View details for PubMedID 33377868

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC7793622

  • Multisensory control of navigation in the fruit fly. Current opinion in neurobiology Currier, T. A., Nagel, K. I. 2020; 64: 10-16

    Abstract

    Spatial navigation is influenced by cues from nearly every sensory modality and thus provides an excellent model for understanding how different sensory streams are integrated to drive behavior. Here we review recent work on multisensory control of navigation in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster, which allows for detailed circuit dissection. We identify four modes of integration that have been described in the literature-suppression, gating, summation, and association-and describe regions of the larval and adult brain that have been implicated in sensory integration. Finally we discuss what circuit architectures might support these different forms of integration. We argue that Drosophila is an excellent model to discover these circuit and biophysical motifs.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.conb.2019.11.017

    View details for PubMedID 31841944

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC7292770

  • Multisensory Control of Orientation in Tethered Flying Drosophila. Current biology : CB Currier, T. A., Nagel, K. I. 2018; 28 (22): 3533-3546.e6

    Abstract

    A longstanding goal of systems neuroscience is to quantitatively describe how the brain integrates sensory cues over time. Here, we develop a closed-loop orienting paradigm in Drosophila to study the algorithms by which cues from two modalities are integrated during ongoing behavior. We find that flies exhibit two behaviors when presented simultaneously with an attractive visual stripe and aversive wind cue. First, flies perform a turn sequence where they initially turn away from the wind but later turn back toward the stripe, suggesting dynamic sensory processing. Second, turns toward the stripe are slowed by the presence of competing wind, suggesting summation of turning drives. We develop a model in which signals from each modality are filtered in space and time to generate turn commands and then summed to produce ongoing orienting behavior. This computational framework correctly predicts behavioral dynamics for a range of stimulus intensities and spatial arrangements.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2018.09.020

    View details for PubMedID 30393038

    View details for PubMedCentralID PMC6503675

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1092-5563