The sense of smell is as vivid as vision in evoking memories of our past, but many people fail to appreciate this sense until they lose it. For humans, the sense of smell is often viewed as an aesthetic sense, but for most animals, olfaction is critical for their survival. When sights and sounds are obscured in a noisy environment, scents are often the only means to discern food and detect predators. Pheromones, on the other hand, evoke mating rituals and territorial aggression which are essential for the propagation of the species.

     Studying olfaction will allow us to address some of the questions that are common to all other senses: vision, hearing, touch and taste.  The three major questions that drive our research follow:

• How are odors or pheromones represented in the brain?
• What is the neural mechanism that allows the brain to detect, parse and integrate sensory information?
• How does neural activity alter the neural circuitry in the olfactory system?

    

      To answer these questions, we use a variety of technologies in the lab, including molecular biology, mouse genetics, optical imaging, patch clamp and other electrophysiological recording techniques, as well as mouse behavioral assays.