People

Affiliated Faculty

Research Interests

Odor coding, olfactory information processing, imaging, temporal dynamics of neural activity, relationship between sampling behavior and neural coding.

Current Research

Work in the lab focuses on how odor information is encoded and processed by the brain, and how odor coding and neural activity is shaped by an animal's sampling behavior. Fluorescence-based imaging methods are used to monitor activity from defined populations of neurons in response to olfactory stimulation in preparations that include brain slices, intact anesthetized animals, and awake behaving animals. The lab is particularly interested in the temporal dynamics of activity across populations of neurons in the olfactory pathway, how these dynamics encode stimulus information, and how this code is shaped by sampling behavior.

Selected Recent Publications

Spors H, Wachowiak M, Cohen LB, Friedrich RW "Temporal Dynamics and latency patterns of receptor neuron input to the olfactory bulb" Journal of Neuroscience 26: 1247-1259 (2006)

McGann J, Pirez N, Gainey M, Muratore C, Elias AS, Wachowiak M "Odorant representations are modulated by intra- but not interglomerular presynaptic inhibition of olfactory sensory neurons" Neuron 48: 1039-1053 (2005)

Wachowiak M, Heyward PM, McGann JP, Purche A, Shipley MT "Inhibition of olfactory receptor neuron input to olfactory bulb glomeruli by suppression of presynaptic calcium influx" Journal of Neurophysiology 94: 2700-2712 (2004)

Wachowiak M, Denk W, Friedrich RW "Functional organization of sensory input to the olfactory bulb glomerulus analyzed by two-photon calcium imaging" Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 101: 9097-9102 (2004)

Bozza T, McGann JP, Mombaerts P, Wachowiak M "In vivo imaging of neuronal activity by targeted expression of a genetically encoded probe in the mouse" Neuron 42: 9-21 (2004)