Crawl This Way How the Brain Is Wired For

1- Ll. en en 1- 1- Ll. en 1- The campus community biweekly June 2, 2005, vol. 5, no. 11 Crawl this way Andromeda: a gift that keeps giving The lovely Andromeda galaxy appeared as a warm fuzzy blob to the ancients. To modern astronomers millennia later, it appeared as an excellent opportunity to better understand the universe. In the lat ter regard, our nearest galactic neighbor is a gift that keeps on giving. Caltech postdoctoral researcher Scott Chapman and Rodrigo lbata of the Ob servatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg in France have led a team of astronomers in mapping the detailed motions of stars on Andromeda's outskirts. Their recent Bob, meet Alice observations with the Keck Telescopes show that the tenuous sprinkle of stars "We Went! We Raced! We Ate Barbed extending outward from the galaxy is Wire!" stated Team Caltech's unabash actually part of the main disk itself. This edly honest website headline on the per means that the spiral disk of Andromeda formance of the truck "Bob" in last year's is three times larger in diameter than DARPA Grand Challenge road race. previously estimated. The race from L.A. to Las Vegas called At the annual summer meeting of the for a completely autonomous vehicle {no American Astronomical Society on May driver or remote conrroJ) that could.trave..._~ ... 30, Chapman outlined evidence of a vast, 142 miles over dirt trails and open desert extended stellar disk that makes the gal in 10 hours or less. Bob went about 1.3 axy more than 220,000 light-years in di miles before getting tangled in barbed ameter. Previously, astronomers thought wire. The farthest any entry got was 7.4 Andromeda was about 70,000 to 80,000 miles. light-years across. Andromeda itself is Enter" Alice," the new vehicle from about 2 million light-years from Earth. Team Caltech 2005-a group of under The new dimensional measure is grads, grad students, and faculty ad Ditch Day stacks posed physical as well as mental challenges to teams. of ~altech freshmen,_ . based on the motions of about 3,000 of visers-that will compete this year on Sophomores and 1·uniors trying to solve them. Whether it meant sloshmg 1n pools or engagmg In water-balloon' fights, the students were game. In th1s· stac k , a mem b e r of the Ocean's 11 team craw 1s the stars some distance from the disk October 8. "We are light-years ahead under a rope net, boot-camp style. Ditch Day took place on May 17 · that were once thought to be merely the with Alice with respect to where we were "halo" of stars in the region and not part last year at the same point with Bob," of the disk itself. By taking very careful says project manager Richard Murray, measurements of the "radial velocities," a professor of control and dynamical Of JPL and javelin How the brain the researchers were able to determine systems, and the chair of the Division of precisely how each star was moving in Engineering and Applied Science. That propulsion relation to the galaxy. is wired for sex may explain why Alice sports the license The results showed that the outlying plate, "I 8 Bob." Speeding down a track runway with a stars are sitting in the plane of the An The DARPA {Defense Advanced Re Two brain structures a mouse just can't javelin in her hand, Kristen Zortman '05 dromeda disk itself and, moreover, are search Projects Agency) Grand Chal do without when hooking up with its probably doesn't fit many people's image moving at a velocity that shows them to lenge is intended to hasten the research dream mate-and trying not to become of a rocket scientist. be in orbit around the center of the galaxy. and development of driverless ground lunch for the neighborhood cat-are the In fact, the 22-year-old senior is both see Andromeda, page 6 amygdala and hypothalamus. The former vehicles that could be used to transport a track-and-field star and a future rocket is involved in the initial response to cues supplies or soldiers on the front lines. scientist. Last weekend, while waiting to According to Joel Burdick, a professor of that signal love or war, while the latter hear whether she'll land her dream job at coordinates innate reproductive or defen mechanical engineering and bioengineer JPL, Zortman was hurling the javelin at ing and a technical adviser, the technol sive behaviors triggered by these cues. the NCAA Division Ill track-and-field na Now, neuroscientists have traced out ogy may also have future ramifications tional championship in Waverly, Iowa. the wiring between the amygdala and hy Grant will fund for automobile design, especially for The first Caltech undergrad to com disabled drivers, and for space explora pothalamus, and may have identified the pete in the nationals in nearly a decade, study of autism genes involved in laying down the wiring tion. Zortman placed 14th in a field of 19. Al With a $2 million first prize, the race itself. The researchers have also gained though she would have liked to do better, One of the classic symptoms of autism is open to individuals and organizations. an understanding of how the circuitry she notes that she rose several notches is difficulty in interpreting other people's works to make behavioral decisions, such Like last year, the exact route won't be from her entry ranking {18th). And any emotions. Caltech professor of psychol announced until two hours before the as when a mouse is confronted simulta disappointment she felt was offset by the ogy and neuroscience Ralph Adolphs neously with an opportunity to reproduce start. sheer excitement of being there, as well has received a $120,000 grant from the Bob, the 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe SUV and an imminent threat. as the support from family, friends, and foundation Cure Autism Now to study used last year, has been replaced by a In the May 19 issue of the journal strangers. how autistic patients process information Ford E-350 van customized by Sportsmo Neuron, David Anderson, Caltech's Sperry "I really enjoyed it," she says, describ about other people's facial expressions. bile, a company specializing in 4x4 vehi Professor of Biology and a Howard Hughes ing the stadium packed with cheering The award will supplement Adolphs's cles. A six-liter diesel engine allows Alice Medical institute investigator, his graduate spectators and having "so many experi ongoing work to understand the role of to idle for long periods with low fuel student Gloria Choi, and colleagues Hong ences that I wouldn't have anywhere the amygdala, a structure in the brain, in wei Dong and Larry Swanson {USC) and consumption. Special hardware on the else." She was "a little nervous" step certain disorders. Andrew Murphy, David Valenzuela, and bumper and roof holds various sensors ping onto the runway: "I looked out on There is tantalizing evidence that the that serve as "eyes." Inside is a complete see Brain, page 2 challenge for autistic persons may not see Zortman, page 6 see Alice, page 6 see Autism, page 2 2 Caltech 336, June 2, 2005 Chen, Hummel win Brain, from page 1 George Yancopoulos (Regeneron Pharma Ford Awards ceuticals) describe their discovery that the NewsBriefs neural pathway between the amygdala and Winners of Henry Ford II Scholar Awards hypothalamus thought to govern repro this year are Yang Chen and Patrick Hum ductive behaviors is marked by a gene with mel. the unromantic name of Lhx6. Yang Chen is a junior in electrical engi To confirm their work, the research neering. In his two years at Caltech, Chen ers checked the suspected neurons has concentrated his research activities when the mice were sexually aroused. on the design of analog circuits, com In male mice, the smell of female mouse puter vision recognition systems, and urine containing pheromones is a sexual microprocessor-based systems. A trans stimulus, evoking such behaviors as fer student from Tsinghua University in ultrasonic vocalization, a sort of "court Beijing, Chen was the first-prize winner ship song." Therefore, the detection of of that institution's Freshman Scholar neural pathway activity when the mouse ship. He was also a Gold Medal recipient smelled the pheromones was the give in the 3rd Asian Physics Olympiad, held away. in Singapore, and the 33rd International The idea that Lhx6 actually speci- Physics Olympiad, held in Bali. fies the pathway wiring is still based on Patrick Hummel, a junior in applied inference, because when the research and computational mathematics, was ers knocked out the gene, the mutation selected as a freshman for a merit-based caused mouse embryos to die of other Axline Award. He has authored and co causes too early to detect an effect on authored seven papers in biology, chem brain wiring. But the Lhx6 gene encodes istry, game theory, and mathematics. a transcription factor in a family of genes Hummel is currently working on detailed that are known to control the pathfind theoretical projects in noncooperative ing of axons-tiny wires that jut out from game theory and in inorganic spectrosco neurons and send messages to other py. He is a founder of the Caltech Chess neurons. Club and is a past winner of the U.S. Na The pathway between the amygdala The Institute welcomed hundreds of alumni and their families back for the tional High School Chess Championship. and hypothalamus involved in danger Alumni Reunion Weekend May 19-21, and Seminar Day, which took place on He hails from Las Vegas, Nevada.

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