Hayato M. Yamanouchi

Systems Ethology — Neuroethology × Informatics

Second-year PhD student, Kamikouchi Laboratory, Nagoya University
JSPS Research Fellow (DC1)

Tools I develop

YORU

An animal behavior recognition system based on object detection

YORU lets you define animal behaviors directly through object detection, detect them in real time, and trigger external devices. The preprint is available on bioRxiv, and the source code is on GitHub.

Read the paper on bioRxiv

GitHub repository

Go to the YORU page

Research

Aiming to understand animal behavior as a system, I pursue three lines of research.

Neural mechanisms of copulation behavior in Drosophila

I study the neural circuits that control copulation behavior in Drosophila melanogaster. The fruit fly has a central nervous system together with a rich genetic toolkit, a short generation time, and easy husbandry, and it displays stereotyped behavioral patterns—making it an excellent model organism for investigating the neural basis of behavior.

Real-time behavioral intervention systems

I develop real-time behavioral intervention systems that trigger devices at the very moment an animal performs a particular behavior. Conventional behavioral analysis has largely relied on offline analysis of recorded video, but detecting a behavior as it happens and applying optogenetic manipulation on the spot allows a far more direct approach to the relationship between behavior and neural activity.

Systems Ethology

Ethology has long been guided by Niko Tinbergen’s four questions: causation, ontogeny, survival value, and evolution. In practice, however, each is pursued separately within its own field, and whatever lies outside the chosen focus tends to be treated as a black box.

See more about my research