About

We study how the brain represents and processes information about the external world. We are interested in how neural circuits transform sensory representations, and particularly interested in how animals actively acquire sensory information to guide behavior. We use the mouse olfactory system as a powerful model to analyze sensory representations and to ask how the dynamics of neural circuits process incoming information to guide behavior and shape perception. As a primary tool we use optical reporters of neural activity and synaptic transmission targeted to genetically- and anatomically-defined neuron populations, and use two-photon imaging in the awake behaving animal combined with measurements of sampling behavior and behavioral readouts of odor perception. We also use genetic and optical tools to perturb neural subpopulations, with the goal of dissecting how particular neural circuits shape sensory transformations in the intact brain.

Research topics

• Neuroscience
• Biology

Selected publications

• Effect of Interglomerular Inhibitory Networks on Olfactory Bulb Odor Representations

  Journal of Neuroscience · 2020 · 33 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Neuroscience
  • Biology

  Lateral inhibition is a key feature of circuitry in many sensory systems including vision, audition, and olfaction. We investigate how lateral inhibitory networks mediated by short axon cells (SACs) in the mouse olfactory bulb (OB) might shape odor representations as a function of their interglomerular connectivity. Using a computational model of interglomerular connectivity derived from experimental data, we find that SAC networks, despite their broad innervation patterns, can mediate heterogeneous patterns of inhibition across glomeruli, and that the canonical model of global inhibition does not generate experimentally observed responses to stimuli. In addition, inhibitory connections tuned by input statistics yield enhanced decorrelation of similar input patterns. These results elucidate how the organization of inhibition between neural elements may affect computations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant F32DC000378

  NIH · $95k

• Collaborative Research: Analysis of the Mammalian Olfactory Code

  NSF · $766k · 2015–2019

• NIH Grant R01DC011423

  NIH · $828k · 2015

• Using functionally-defined glomeruli to probe circuit function in the mammalian olfactory bulb

  NIH · $1.9M · 2018–2024

• NIH Grant R01DC008116

  NIH · $1.4M · 2010

Frequent coauthors

• Lawrence B. Cohen

  Yale University

  40 shared

• Shawn D. Burton

  Lehigh University

  30 shared

• Justin D. Silverman

  Pennsylvania State University

  25 shared

• Hiroaki Matsunami

  Duke University

  22 shared

• Michał Żochowski

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  19 shared

• B. W. Ache

  University of Florida

  18 shared

• Maíra H. Nagai

  Duke University

  16 shared

• Kevin Zhu

  16 shared

Labs

• Wachowiak LabPI