Our Research

The brain must transform sensory signals into a neural code that drives perception and behavior.


Background Segmentation

Distinguishing a percept from others in the background.


Concentration Invariance

Recognizing an odor as the same whether it's near or far away.


Concentration Sensitivity

Optimizing detection of the concentration changes.

Our hypothesis is that the olfactory bulb is critically involved in carrying out these functions.





Odor detection begins by the transmission of sensory cues into the olfactory bulb.




Odor Transduction

Inhaled odors bind to receptors located in the nasal cavity.



Odor Processing

Odor information is sent to the bulb (red) where it is transformed and transmitted to the rest of the brain (green).

We study how sensory information is transformed across this circuit.





Genetically encoded sensors are fluorescent proteins that report cellular activity.




Genetic targeting allows measurements of functional activity from different cell types.





Multi-color 2-photon imaging to simultaneously measure activitiy in different cell types






Functional transformations within the bulb





Concentration sensitivity

Odor representations are stable across concentrations.




Background adjustments

Bulb processing generates background adjustments.