Earlier this March, our MODOLFOR Research Unit came together in Maria Laach for the yearly retreat. We spent three exciting days discussing new scientific results and exchanging ideas for the future. 🪰🐭👃🧠

Evolution seems to have repeatedly converged on a similar architecture in the early olfactory system of many animals. We offer an efficient-coding framework to understand this. Out in @pnas.org now! Led by @jzv.bsky.social, driven by Juan Carlos, + help from Farhad. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New #VosshallLab pre-print! Test your sense of smell, coming soon to your clinic or doctor's office www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Check out our new preprint and learn about the smart foraging behavior of fly larvae! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Along with @katrinvogt.bsky.social , @akhila1498.bsky.social and Klára Tučková we combine long timescale (3 hr) behavioral tracking of Drosophila larvae in patchy environments with varying statistics, along with quantitative analysis and computational modeling, to dissect foraging strategies. 1/n

Congrats to our research unit member Annika Cichy @cichy1985.bsky.social !🎉 Check out her new publication: www.cell.com/current-biol... A microbiome-derived chemical cue shapes mammalian social behavior via olfaction

Happy to share the latest from the lab! A microbiome-generated metabolite affects male-male aggression and social dominance in mice via the main olfactory system. Gut-Nose-Behavior. www.cell.com/current-biol...

“We’re hoping doors will open for researchers to ask questions about how connections are made in the brain in mice and maybe, one day, humans.” - @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social Read about the new NIH-funded program to map brain circuitry using X-rays: www.crick.ac.uk/news/2026-03...

Markus Knaden et al. from the Odor-Guided Behavior Group in collab. with @yukoulrich.bsky.social report in PNAS that ozone destroys colony-specific odors causing attacks within the colony – a dramatic example of how human pollution can disrupt social systems in nature. www.ice.mpg.de/530492/PR_Ji...

The first paper from the lab is now out in Science Advances: Multimodal social context modulates larval behavior in Drosophila www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... We find that fly larvae keep their distance to conspecifics in the absence of food, enjoy reading! @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de

🤯🎉 Our study on how early exposure to fatty foods rewires the brain and influences obesity risk has been selected as one of the 12 Max Planck Society Research Highlights of 2025! 🧠✨ So proud to see our team’s work recognised at this level 😊 www.mpg.de/25933453/res...

You probably know that calories in the maternal diet matter 🤰🍔, but did you know that smell matters too👃? Check out this fantastic radio piece about our recent paper from @deutschlandfunk.de.web.brid.gy (in German) 📻☺️ www.deutschlandfunk.de/der-duft-von...

Congratulations, Sophie!!!🥳🎉💐🥂

Congratulations!!! Exciting new paper from our MODOLFOR member Andreas Schaefer! 🥳🎉

Congratulations to @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social on receiving a £3.8 million @wellcometrust.bsky.social Discovery Award, working with @esrf.fr, to chart the brain circuity behind the sense of smell in mice. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-10...

Very excited to continue our amazing collaboration with @apacureanu.bsky.social at @esrf.fr - thank you @wellcometrust.bsky.social and all the collaborators at @crick.ac.uk and @esrf.fr

Thrilled our discovery of a novel sensory pathway controlling satiety in mice is featured in the General-Anzeiger @gabonn 🐭👃🍽️! 👇 Kölner Studie: Geruch macht satt (zumindest Mäuse) ga.de/news/wissen-...

Congratulations to our spokesperson Veronica Egger for receiving an ERC Advanced Grant!!🥂🐭🎉

📢 🤩Excited to share our latest paper👃🧠! Huge thanks to the amazing first author @janice-bulk.bsky.social‬ and all co-authors, especially @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social and ‪@tobiasackels.bsky.social‬ 🙌! ‬‬ www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Wir begrüßen Professorin @silkesachse.bsky.social‬ als neue Leiterin des Lehrstuhls für #Neurobiologie und #Genetik! Sie kommt aus Jena zu uns (@mpi-ce.bsky.social) und erforscht den Geruchssinn von #Insekten. ➡️ www.uni-wuerzburg.de/aktuelles/ei...

My PhD project is out as a preprint! We combined 2P and synchrotron X-ray to understand mouse olfactory bulb circuits, linking physiology to structure in 3 animals! doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🙌 @carlesbosch.bsky.social, @apacureanu.bsky.social, @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, @esrf.fr, @crick.ac.uk

Cool set of talks by early career researchers on the neural basis of behaviour! Organized by @neuroethology.org

👋 Looking forward to the 117th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society. Please like and share 🤩

PhD project offer: Sensing the unseen: How diatoms detect and respond to highly dilute sex-inducing pheromones Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Georg Pohnert, FSU Jena; Dr. Markus Knaden MPI for Chemical Ecology More information: www.ice.mpg.de/319540/Proje... Apply now: jobs.ice.mpg.de/en/jobpostin...

We will continue the programm after the lunch and workshop break at 2.30 pm with Symposia V (S25 - S30). #NWG2025

Tomorrow morning, March 29th at 11:30 am, check out Symposium 31 at #NWG2025 @neurowissg.bsky.social organized by MODOLFOR member Tobias Ackels @tobiasackels.bsky.social

I am excited to speak in the next Symposium 26 at #NWG2025 @neurowissg.bsky.social about our newest results in cannibalistic behavior in fly larvae

Circuits for behavior: cross-species strategies for adaptation & plasticity. Don´t miss our ibehave.bsky.social -sponsored symposium on the state-dependent dynamics shaping plans, actions and predictions across time scales in flies, mice & mole rats by ggatto.bsky.social jangrundemann.bsky.social

In Symposium 12 (Hall 103) ten young scientists will get the chance to give a talk and compete for Breaking News Awards in our first Breaking News symposium. The first place will get 500€ (2nd 300€, 3rd 200€). #NWG2025

Today, MODOLFOR member @ikadow.bsky.social will open Symposium 14. See you at 14:30 in lecture hall 10.

Honored to present my work on naked mole rats from @garyrlewin.bsky.social at the @modolfor.bsky.social symposium (@silkesachse.bsky.social) during the Göttingen Neuroscience Meeting #NWG @neurowissg.bsky.social —and finally getting the famous and amazing Drosophila from @katrinvogt.bsky.social!!

Check out Symposium 6 organized by MODOLFOR member Markus Rothermel - starting today at 14:30

On the way to Göttingen! Tomorrow, check out the poster from my PhD student Hari Narayanan @hari-flies.bsky.social We find that navigating odors is modulated by hunger and social context in fly larvae @modolfor.bsky.social

Our Symposium takes place tomorrow at the Sternwarte in Göttingen. We are looking forward to exciting talks from @nawrot.bsky.social, @xenofrog.bsky.social, Lisa Scheunemann, Andre Fiala and Celine Riera. What a great start of the #NWG meeting @neurowissg.bsky.social

It‘s finally official! I am thrilled to start at the Chair of Neurobiology and Genetics at the @uni-wuerzburg.de on April 1st! I am very grateful to all my mentors, group members, collaborators and friends without whom I could not have achieved this. Please come & visit beautiful Wuerzburg soon!

Shapley Fields Reveal Chemotopic Organization in the Mouse Olfactory Bulb Across Diverse Chemical Feature Sets https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.26.640432v1

Laterality and interhemispheric integration in the larval Drosophila olfactory system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.02.641007v1

Rewiring an olfactory circuit by altering the combinatorial code of cell-surface proteins https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.01.640986v1

I’m really pleased to see this study out recently in @jexpbiol.bsky.social, composed partly of an experiment I helped to develop and run in the field for my master’s thesis. 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜 doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

A new round of the Lise Meitner Excellence Program for #tenuretrack group leaders opened today - please consider applying! The program aims to recruit and promote exceptionally qualified female scientists. www.mpg.de/lise-meitner... #LiseMeitnerGroups #WomeninScience #ScienceCareer

Today, we honor the incredible achievements of women in science. Meet female researchers from our institute: @silkesachse.bsky.social, Sonja Bisch-Knaden, Priya Reddy, Karin Groten, and @shabmohammadi.bsky.social. Let’s continue championing diversity & equality in research! #WomenInScience

Synergistic olfactory nerve input and cholinergic neuromodulation can activate ERK in rat olfactory bulb vasopressin cells https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.28.635198v1

Excited to share our new preprint: How does the fly mushroom body support odour categorisation and discrimination? 🧠✨ Dive into Ivy Chan's @ivychanchiwai.bsky.social findings on how neural circuits enable complex olfactory processing in flies. Check it out here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Dear colleagues fascinated by olfaction and taste! 👃🏾👅 We’ll organize the next ESITO (Symposium of Insect Taste and Olfaction) from September 19-24 2025 in Sardinia at the beautiful Hotel Cormoran again. We are currently updating the website and will start the registration soon! Please stay tuned!

Mammals smell faster than they breathe: Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Early Career Award 2025 goes to Tobias Ackels @goetheuni.bsky.social @paulstiftung... weiterlesen

🌟 Smells That Shape Our Senses: Neurogenesis in Action 🌟 In mammals, olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are born throughout life to replace damaged ones. Each OSN randomly picks one odorant receptor gene from hundreds, defining its subtype. But is this process entirely random?

A background in physics, and his own curiosity, have helped Dmitry Rinberg tackle the complexities of the neuroscience of smell. More on Rinberg sniffing out the mysteries of olfaction. By Lina Zeldovich www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/sn...

Parallel and converging multisensory cascades in the Drosophila connectome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.04.624189v1

I digested two nature papers @natureportfolio.bsky.social @crezaval.bsky.social @MikeCrickmore about flexible integration and decision-making in Drosophila courtship and mating. Out came this dispatch for @currentbiology.bsky.social : authors.elsevier.com/a/1kCED_LsQS... Enjoy reading!