2024, July 8th – Kira Schoenberg joins the lab as our new Lab Technician. Welcome Kira!
2024, June 1st – summer interns – Jordan Walter, (Wesleyan) – URP, and Wolf de Wulf (University of Edinburgh) – Neuro-AI intern, join the lab for fun pursuits over the summer. Jordan is investigating the genetic blueprint of various subtypes of mitral and tufted cells together with Zarmeena, and Wolf joins forces with Priyanka, taking GLM and LFAD approaches to explain neuronal representations of sensorimotor prediction errors in the Smellocator task. Welcome Jordan and Wolf!
2024, April 20th – Walter is awarded the Pollack Young investigator Award at AChemS 2024 meeting for his, Cina, Priyanka and Tatiana‘s work on investigating differential contribution of glomeruli in shaping olfactory perception via patterned optogenetic manipulations and pattern perturbations. Second Pollack award to the lab in as many years. Congrats Walter!!!
2024, April 20th – Ryan Fayyazi returns to CSHL for more fun with modeling together with Priyanka how agents and mice learn the Smellocator task. joint with the Cowley lab. Welcome back Ryan!!!
2024, April 1-5th – A new iteration of the Optical Methods in Biology course…returning after a 4 years gap to introduce first year PhD students on campus to optical imaging, and the beauty of opening and understanding the working of black boxes of sorts in the lab. Thanks to the TAs (Priyanka & Walter) and Arka for making it happening once again! Pic 1. Pic 2. Pic 3. Pic 4. Pic 5.
2024, February 12th – Marie defends her thesis work on sensorimotor prediction errors in the olfactory cortex. Congrats Dr. Dussauze!!! Pic.
2023, August 31st – Zarmeena Dawood, Hofsra University MD-PHD student, joins the lab to pursue her PhD work on figuring out the logic of olfactory neuronal circuit connectivity. Zarmeena aims to investigate the relationship between the molecular identity and functional responses of odorant receptors (OR/glomeruli) and the projection patterns of their daughter mitral and tufted cells to a dozen target regions across the brain, including the olfactory cortex. Zarmeena is employing high-throughput barcoding tools for neural connectivity mapping (BARseq) developed by the Zador lab.
2023, June 1st– Neuro-AI summer intern, Ryan Fayyazi, MSc from University of British Columbia, joins the lab to develop modeling framework of the Smellocator task, taking advantage of optimal control theory. joint pursuit with the Cowley lab. Welcome Ryan!
2023, April 20th – Priyanka is awarded the Pollack Young investigator Award at AChemS 2023 meeting for her and Marie‘s work on investigation sensorimotor prediction error signals in the olfactory cortex by taking advantage of a closed-loop olfactory localization task (Smellocator) she developed. Congrats!!!
2022, October 27th – Congrats to the whole olfactory projectome team: Yushu, Xiaoyin, Batu, Ching, Yan, Martin, Justus, Tony & Alex!!! Using high-throughput barcode sequencing, we find that the olfactory cortex connectivity is spatially structured forming triadic circuit motifs in the piriform cortex. These triadic motifs engage the olfactory bulb, given A-P locations within the piriform cortex and specific extra-piriform brain regions. Contrary to the random olfactory cortex connectivity view, we suggest an alternative model in which odor stimuli are processed along parallel, spatially segregated, functionally distinct streams. Now in print. Press release. Celebrations.
2022, October 13th – on singing mice, controlling face muscles, long-range neural wiring, nature vs. nurture, behavior-to-circuits or the other way around?, brain-body-and-back-to-brain interactions. A joint day-long lab retreat with the Borniger, Banerjee, Hou & Pouchelon groups in the Banbury CSHL campus. Cool exchange of ideas, fun discussions and idyllic location. To be re-iterated. Pics.
2022, October 1st – Generous support from the NIH (NIDCD) to understand the cortical substrates of closed-loop olfaction. Online behavioral perturbations in closed-loop and open-loop odor scene environments in conjunction with monitoring neural activity across cell types. Mapping olfactory cortex-anchored neural circuits that compute olfactomotor predictions and errors in Smellocator expert subjects.
2022, September 28th – Congrats to Honggoo, Arka and Marie! Their work reveals functional long-range loops involving the tufted and mitral cells and their major cortical targets: the anterior olfactory nucleus versus piriform cortex. Tufted cells outperform mitral cells and appear ideally positioned to compute odor identity and intensity. Cortical feedback regulates specifically the activity of its dominant input cell type and implements different computations. The jury is still out, as their results trigger exciting testable hypotheses including that neural circuits in the anterior olfactory nucleus may outperform circuits in the piriform cortex at decoding odor identity during olfactory behaviors. Press release.
2022, June 5th – Summer interns Aishwarya Seth (Neuro-AI) and Nicolas Rios (URP) from JHU: Seth will test whether reinforcement learning agents can match expert mice’s behavior in the closed-loop Smellocator task and investigate their underpinnings (model-free vs. model-based). Nicolas joins forces with Diego to understand whether cortical feedback to the bulb supports rule-reversal events. Zarmeena Dawood (Hofsra University) is rotating in the lab and will explore the logic of reciprocal projections between olfactory brain regions using high throughput DNA barcoding tools (MAPseq & BARseq). Welcome Seth, Nicolas & Zarmeena!
2022, February 1st – Blom Kraakman (University of Amsterdam) joins the lab to pursue her Masters thesis in Neuroscience building on a background in Philosophy. Blom is joining the Smellocator team and aims to understand whether the brain generates and makes use of olfactomotor predictions and errors during closed-loop behavior. Welcome Blom!
2021, July 1st – Sanjeev Kaushalya joins CSHL to steer the emerging NeuroImaging and Behavior Core. Building on rich Neuro-engineering, Physics and Chemistry expertise, Sanjeev will help synergize efforts across labs on the CSHL campus and put to good use various new optical and ultrasound imaging methods. Welcome Sanjeev!
2020, November 1st – Steven Gluf joins the lab as technician to help an expanding effort to understand the neural mechanisms of olfactory perception. Welcome Steven!
2019, July 22nd – A survey into the early neural representations of odorants. The entry-level olfactory inputs and the further processed olfactory bulb outputs appear to represent different aspects of smell beyond the physical-chemical properties of molecules sampled. Jointly with the Koulakov group.
2019, May 1st – Generous support from the BRAIN Initiative to understand the logic of olfactory bulb projections across the brain. Functional in vivo imaging of odorant responses and MAPseq in search of meaningful patterns. A joint enterprise with the Koulakov and Zador groups.
2018, November 28th – Glomeruli receive mixed odorant receptor input in the absence of the olfactory marker protein OMP. A project spanning a decade-long journey.
2018, October 2nd – Generous support from the NIH to understand the functional basis of olfaction, NIH Transformative Research Award . A joint effort with the Koulakov and Zador labs.
2017, January 3rd – Gonzalo‘s sparse L2 source reconstruction model is on the Arxiv. Finds known sources in presence of strong unknowns.
2016, December 8th – Pedro‘s defense. Congrats Dr. Garcia da Silva!
2016, October 14th – Priyanka‘s defense. Congrats Dr. Gupta!
2016, September 29th – Priyanka’s bioRxiv primer on robust, fast and flexible odor machines.
2016, August 18th – Justus, Pedro, Ian, Ashlan and Tony‘s revolution of sequencing the brain connectome. Neuroscience in a new era.
2016, July 25th – Matt’s defense. Congrats Dr. Koh!
2016, May 11th – Kai, Pedro and Bo on active and passive defense.
2016, March 20th – Arka’s defense. Congrats Dr. Bandyopadhyay!
2015, July 1st – Arka and Fred’s saga on the long projecting, yet short axon cells, DAT+ for namesake, is in print. More below on how they go about implementing concentration gain control, and not only.
Science Daily – Revised view of brain circuit reveals gain control mechanisms in the olfactory bulb
2015, June 4th – Gonzalo and Honggoo got positive feedback. Find about their first foray into top-down cortical action on bulb processing. There is more to it.
Science Daily – How feedback from cortex helps mammals make fine decisions about odors
2015, May 8th – Neurons are intrinsically non-linear devices. Yet, Priyanka reports that striking linearity emerges in the bulb for the temporal summation of sniffs, odors and mixtures. What has come to it? Check the commentary below.
Wall Street Journal – Scents of Smell Rooted in Math
2014, Sept 30th – yet again the BRAIN project.
CSHL press release – 4 CSHL scientists will contribute to President’s BRAIN Initiative under new NIH grants
2014, August 18th – The BRAIN Initiative brings relief to the lab.
CSHL Press Release NSF Early Concept grants for Neuroscience.
2014, June 18th – Accounts of an incredibly fun neuroscience venture in the heart of Transylvania. At TENSS everything is possible. Many thanks to all of you who are making this dreamlike adventure real. Keep it alive!
Nature – Summer skills
National Geographic – A tale of TENSS
2010, Oct 19th – Interest in olfaction rises in the media when it sounds fancy. In real, a surprising and binding report on how sisters mitral cells are yet so different and increase the information broadband from the bulb to the cortex. Congrats Ashesh!!!
Science Update, AAAS – Light Smelling Mice
National Public Radio (NPR) – Sensory Deception: Lab Mice Can ‘Smell’ Light