Olfaction is an evolutionarily primitive sense critical for survival across the animal kingdom - finding food, searching for mates, or avoiding predation all depend on detecting, identifying, and discriminating odors. Although early steps in olfactory processing are relatively well understood, significant gaps remain in our understanding of higher-order odor representations and processing during on-going behavior. Deciphering the operating principles of olfaction requires the development of innovative and integrative approaches that combine novel theoretical frameworks, improved mathematical models, and novel behavioral paradigms across the phylogenetic spectrum, experimental methodologies, and engineering principles. As part of the BRAIN Initiative, a 5-day focused Ideas Lab workshop was organized in Summer 2015 to bring together researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds to engender fresh thinking and innovative approaches that will transform understanding of olfactory processing in behavioral contexts while spawning new opportunities to elucidate the general nature of sensory representations in the brain. The workshop resulted in three awards to a total of 17 researchers in three project teams. This current workshop brings together the awardees, trainees and experts in Physics, Engineering and Neuroscience to share the exciting developments and findings from the projects.
The workshop features investigators at all academic levels with a mix of quantitative researchers and neuroscientists. An integral aspect of the workshop is extensive cross-disciplinary interaction. Importantly, this workshop is part of a concerted effort to coordinate and align interagency priorities to accomplish the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. The workshop is anticipated to result in sharing of knowledge and development of integrative team approaches to tackle the nature of olfactory processing and sensory representations in the brain in general.
