Dima Rinberg, PhD

Professor, Department of Neuroscience

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Host(s): Center for Theoretical Neuroscience

Sequences and Relevance in Olfaction

Sensory stimuli evoke complex spatiotemporal patterns of neuronal activity. Are all features of this activity relevant for behavior? What role do the "irrelevant" features play? We address these questions in the mammalian olfactory system, where activity in the olfactory bulb encodes odors and transmits that information to higher brain areas. Using pattern optogenetics to control evoked neural activity, we created synthetic odor stimuli and tested which neural features are relevant for stimulus readout. Earlier activity carried more behaviorally relevant information than later activity, and both spatial features (which neurons are active) and temporal features (when they fire) shaped the resulting percept. Relating these results to natural odor processing, we propose that the structure of information relevance follows from the demand for concentration-invariant recognition. We then return to the later part of odor-evoked sequences. Our own results mark this part as irrelevant for recognition, but we argue that it may instead serve to organize an odor map in higher brain areas.

Relevant Publications:

Manipulating synthetic optogenetic odors reveals the coding logic of olfactory perception

Temporal sequence geometry enables odor recognition and generalization

Tuesdays@10 is a signature Zuckerman Institute initiative that aims to expose researchers at all levels to high-quality science and stimulate scientific discourse. The speakers featured in this series represent various fields and techniques in neuroscience, and include invited guests of the Columbia Neuroscience Seminars, the Zuckerman Institute's Local Circuits Affiliates Program, and other special seminar series through a combined, collaborative effort of one or more of the following: Columbia's Zuckerman Institute, the Center for Precision Psychiatry, the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, the Department of Neuroscience, the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and the Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, and with support from the Kavli Institute for Brain Science. 

More information and a full schedule can be found here.