A Deep Curiosity About the Brain

Gaby Maimon became interested in the brain at a young age, wanting to understand what made different people behave the way they do. Why were some people loud and argumentative and others calm and peaceful? Could a better understanding of the brain hold the answers?

But it took until college for him to identify science as a possible career path. A mentor, brain scientist Barbara Finlay at Cornell University, suggested Maimon could be well-suited for academic research.

“I realized I enjoy thinking deeply about problems,” Maimon said. “That was when I was happiest and where I felt I could contribute the most.”

Last summer, Maimon took over the helm of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute at Rockefeller University as its new director, with Priya Rajasethupathy as associate director. He’s been a member of the institute since its founding in 2015 and a faculty member at Rockefeller since 2011, working to answer questions related to the neural bases for cognition and behavior.

In recent years, his lab has made findings about how fruit flies navigate the world, including the discovery of a brain circuit that acts to rotate an internal compass, a brain circuit that allows flies to navigate toward goals, and a mechanism for explaining how brains can store and add mathematical vectors (i.e., two-dimensional quantities that combine an angle and a length) to help flies calculate their direction of travel. To make these discoveries, Maimon’s group has developed platforms and tools for studying the fly brain in action, including tiny treadmill-like devices and special holsters to study the insects’ neural activity as the animals walk or fly.

His group, most recently, has begun developing methods for studying weeks-long behaviors in flies. Understanding the molecular details behind long-term memory formation in these insects may deeply inform how memories are built––an enduring question in neuroscience. Such findings may also, ultimately, inform the etiology of neurological diseases in which memories are disrupted, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Maimon said.

Funding in a time of uncertainty

As the new leaders of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute, Maimon and Rajasethupathy want to use support from The Kavli Foundation to bolster as many institute lab teams as possible. In the past, the institute supported two postdoctoral fellow positions per year. They now aim to support three to four postdoctoral fellows per year, each for a two-year appointment, meaning six to eight fellows are funded at the same time.

“With no more than one fellow per lab, the idea is to have broader funding of labs in this moment where other sources of funding are more uncertain,” Maimon said. “We want to empower individuals to do creative work.”

Funding from the Kavli Neural Systems Institute also supports a fabrication facility at the university, which builds custom equipment for dozens of Rockefeller labs to support neuroscience research. Maimon and Rajasethupathy have also instituted an annual symposium at the Kavli Neural Systems Institute run by graduate students. The students will choose prominent external speakers who research topics in neuroscience that are underrepresented at Rockefeller.

The Kavli Neural Systems Institute also supports smaller and more regular seminars, symposia and social events. These events are particularly important at The Rockefeller University because it is an institution without traditional departments. Rockefeller eschews many of the administrative silos of larger organizations and thus the Kavli Neural Systems Institute plays an outsized role in the culture there, Maimon said. It brings together faculty and trainees in different ways than otherwise offered at the university.

Identifying the next generation of scientists

Now a full professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Maimon takes his role as a mentor to graduate students and other trainees seriously. He aims to fulfill the part that his college mentor did for him, by identifying those who will truly excel as scientists but may not recognize that potential in themselves. Those who, like Maimon, love thinking about problems deeply and are comfortable with and excited by the unknown, who are prepared to spend a long time digging for answers.

“When I was younger, I didn’t realize that I might have potential as a scientist until college,” he said. “As a mentor, I try to inspire students with predilections and talents that are clearly well-fit for science, but who might lack the confidence to realize this in themselves.”