Halley Jeanne Dante

I have always been interested in how something as ‘subjective’ as behavior can occur as a result of something as ‘objective’ as electrical signals. Therefore, studying the brain and its ties to behavior is something I have always wanted to do. In addition to the brain, I also really enjoy mathematics and its possible applications in neuroscience as it can be used to simplify the nature of neural circuits into mathematical expressions.

In the Bahl lab, the brain is studied in an interdisciplinary fashion by integrating concepts from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Specifically, we study the process of spatial decision-making through studying phototactic behavior in larval zebrafish, our model organism. During my time at Konstanz, I helped with characterizing aspects of phototactic preference including describing preference across different time-scales and intensities on both an individual and a populational level.