A mouse sniffing a turbulent plume of scent is processing a stream of information that scientists are only beginning to decode. The problem is that the brain evolved to make sense of a world in constant flux—sounds, sights, and smells that fluctuate wildly from moment to moment. Yet most laboratory experiments present sensory stimuli as static, steady pulses. This leaves a critical gap: we do not know how the brain extracts meaning from the natural, dynamic patterns of odour intensity that animals actually encounter. The researcher has developed tools to measure and generate these fluctuating odour plumes in the lab, and will combine behavioural tests, genetic manipulation, and neural recordings in awake mice to find out what information those dynamics carry, how neurons represent them, and how the brain uses them for tasks like navigation. This is fundamental science. It asks how a sensory system works under realistic conditions, not artificial ones. If successful, it could reshape our understanding of neural coding more broadly—not just for smell, but for how any brain processes time-varying signals. Past work on dynamic sensory coding has informed everything from prosthetic limb control to speech recognition algorithms. A deeper grasp of how circuits decode temporal structure could, in the long run, inspire more efficient artificial sensors or better models of neural computation.
View original technical description
The external world is not static but in a constant state of flux. To understand how the brain functions, we, therefore, must investigate how it extracts relevant information from dynamic, highly fluctuating sensory signals. Olfaction is an ideal modality with which to study this question. A key sense for nocturnal and crepuscular animals, such as laboratory rodents, the comparatively simple anatomy of the early olfactory system makes it highly accessible and tractable. Turbulent airflow creates a rich temporal structure in the intensity fluctuations of natural odour stimuli. Yet, how these dynamics are processed by the olfactory system and the extent to which it uses or ignores this information remains unknown. I have recently established quantitative behavioural tools, genetic and optogenetic manipulation of the early olfactory system, electrophysiological and imaging approaches in the awake behaving mouse, and the tools to measure and generate temporally fluctuating olfactory stimuli with high bandwidth. We will now combine these approaches to tackle key questions relating to the significance of natural dynamics for the coding of sensory stimuli. 1: What information is contained in the dynamics of natural olfactory stimuli?2: To what extent do neurons represent such dynamics? 3: How are stimulus dynamics used for behavioural tasks such as navigation? 4: What are the circuits and mechanisms that support, extract information from, or compensate for stimulus dynamics? My guiding hypothesis is that temporal dynamics and coherence of natural smells are decoded by the circuitry of the early olfactory system to extract information about distance, location and the nature of olfactory objects and scenes.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know