A fruit fly walks on a small styrofoam ball fashioned into a floating 3D treadmill. The room is completely dark, and yet, an electrode recording visual neurons in the fly’s brain relays a mysterious stream of neural activity, rising and falling like a sinusoidal wave.

When Eugenia Chiappe, a neuroscientist at the Champalimaud Foundation in Portugal, first saw these results, she had a hunch her team had made an exceptional discovery. They were recording from visual neurons, but the room was dark, so there was no visual signal that could drive the neurons in that manner. 

This lecture is part of the "Champalimaud Cancer Talks" series, organised by the Champalimaud Foundation with the aim of offering the general public unique opportunities to hear the world's leading authorities in different fields related to cancer research and clinical practice. This time, Professor Hidde Ploegh will present his research work on:

Among neurological disorders, which are now the world’s leading cause of disability, Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the fastest growing. With over 6 million individuals affected worldwide, that number is expected to reach over 12 million by 2040.