Szymon Szymański

I joined the lab in 2022 to start work on my honours (final BSci) project. Currently, I am studying for an MSci in Biological Sciences, and I am expected to graduate in June 2024.

My main interests lie in how environmental and anthropogenic variables can influence animal behaviour, as well as the genetic, neuronal, and physiological bases of such behavioural changes. My primary focus now is reversal and extinction learning in the Western honeybee and how it can be influenced by deformed wing virus infections. This project is very exciting - it is the first one of its kind, as a lot of previous work on the deformed wing virus used artificially infected bees, while we use bees with naturally acquired infections. It is also very environmentally relevant, as the deformed wing virus is one of the most common diseases among honeybees. GABAergic signalling in the brain is the main candidate pathway that I am using to explain how the virus affects bee behaviour.