First paper from the lab! We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social

Chicago is definitely burning. Just not in the way the news wants to portray.

#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Very excited to see this out in the world. It was fun to play a (small) part in it.

Octopuses sense environmental microbiomes to drive predatory and parental behaviors. Artwork by Lily Soucy. #evolution #sensation #microbiome @cellpress.bsky.social

Excited to share our latest!! Thanks to everyone involved especially @neurovenki.bsky.social!

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Proud to share Kai Clane Belonio’s latest work in our lab. Kai showed that induced-depression decreases behavioral tolerance of aversive odorants as well as increases in neuroinflammation in sensory affective areas. Also contributing are @nervenkidd.bsky.social and Eyerusalem Haile.

🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com! We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments www.nature.com/articles/s41... This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️

Some campus brutalism to accompany this brutal heatwave.

@shawn-anthony.bsky.social helped ~20 undergrads learn transcriptomics in this budget friendly investigation into the dogbane family. A fun way to investigate the molecular evolution of the group. Also, a chance to collaborate with @phylonatworks.bsky.social and Jarrad! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Animals’ sniffing drives rhythmic input to the olfactory system. How does this timing contribute to perception, especially beyond first steps of olfactory processing? We tested this using simple closed-loop optogenetics in our new paper: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

What a special place. So grateful for all the friendships, learning, and science that fullfilled my time @harvard.edu.

Proud of @nervenkidd.bsky.social (Zach Fyke), a graduate student in our group, for being recognized by @uicbios.bsky.social for both his research AND teaching over the past academic year. Here are links to some of his recent work: tinyurl.com/37vw5s5f tinyurl.com/23zu458t tinyurl.com/3mmjvw83

Maps are everywhere in the brain...and finally we've discovered one in the nose! Led by @davidhbrann.bsky.social, we uncovered the logic that specifies the positions of each of the 1,000 sensory neuron subtypes in the nose and aligns their projections to the brain.👇👃see more details below👃👇

One of our new favorite images for #fluoresencefriday. Graduate student, Lindsay Vivona, labeled fibers from each anterior olfactory nucleus hemisphere as they bidirectionally pass through the anterior commissure. #neuroskyence #olfaction

#preprint: We mapped the structure and function of olfactory bulb circuits with in vivo 2-photon microscopy and synchrotron #Xray holographic nanotomography. doi.org/10.1101/2025... @yuxinzhang.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @apacureanu.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @esrf.fr

Now in its final form, our recent work on how olfactory transduction currents help ensure sparse sensory coding. Led by a post-bac Kai Clane Belonio and a graduate student, Eyerusalem Haile, this was a group effort by the entire laboratory. www.jneurosci.org/content/45/1...

My lab has several postdoctoral fellow and software engineering positions available. Please email me if you’re interested.

Olfactory neuroscientists have known for a while that their stimuli stink. A new analysis illuminates the extent of the problem. By @callimcflurry.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/sm...

Now out in @sfnjournals.bsky.socialjournals.bsky.social : bit.ly/3YzVjRv. In VSNs, Ca²⁺ doesn’t tell a 'simple' story. Ca²⁺ at the knob excites, while at the soma it can activate K⁺ channels, dampening excitability. This channel diversity and compartmentalization refine vomeronasal sensory output-

Commute home

Excited to share my latest work just out in @pnas.org! This NIH MOSAIC K99-funded project identifies a top-down cortical circuit—from cingulate to auditory cortex—that supports auditory perceptual performance in challenging listening conditions: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 Job alert! 🚨 The Chung Lab @ Yale seeks a motivated, creative postdoc to examine tissue remodeling in health and disease. We study ovarian aging and cardiovascular disease in human samples and animal models. Passionate about single-cell, spatial genomics, machine learning & therapeutics? Join us!

Reminder: apply for our research assistant position!

🎉 so excited to share my first first-author paper is out in @Nature.com, from my PhD work in the Gallio Lab! we uncover the neurobiological mechanisms that drive the evolution of temperature preference behavior in flies of the genus Drosophila 👇 go.nature.com/4i1VQn9

Our first “Icelandic” paper is out 🥳🌋 Led by our country-hopping, cold-adapted patcher extraordinaire @neurosana.bsky.social and done between Cambridge & the Petersen lab in Reykjavík, here’s our offering on the mitral vs tufted cell debate in the olfactory bulb www.eneuro.org/content/12/3... 1/🧵

Our paper @dulaclab.bsky.social on social homeostasis is online today! We characterized “social rebound” behavior after social isolation in multiple mouse strains and revealed its neural basis. Intriguingly, soft touch plays a key role in satisfying social need! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Honoured to have been selected as a #SloanFellow Thankful for all the support from family, mentors, collaborators, colleagues and students along the way! @sloanfoundation.bsky.social

Happy to share our latest preprint! Very thankful of this project that have allowed me to (1) learn a lot, (2) work with very talented and rigorous people, and (3) capitalize 1 and 2 for delving into how mice olfactory system deals with very brief, intermittent odor stimuli.

Asked by non-scientists about the ICR cuts, a point I emphasized is that doing it overnight serves no reasonable objective. Good people could disagree on ICR levels, but a cut so deep and abrupt saves less than what you lose in damage to what you've already invested.

Yes, many worrying things happening in science that should take priority in grabbing our attention - but we are worried precisely because scientific knowledge is worth creating. In that spirit, I am proud to highlight our latest @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint! #neuroscience 🧪

In hard times like now, I hope scientists and society can continue together. 🧠❤️ This neuron was from a person. The donor, a 94-YO man with a perfect score on memory tests, died of non-neuro causes. Thanks to his donation, we can continue to learn that age-related cognitive decline is not inevitable.

Nares to body width ratio and stereo olfaction in marine mammals. Cool!

I am deeply grateful for this award, which not only recognizes my work but also reflects the invaluable contributions of my team, mentors, and supporters! It inspires me to continue working with my lab to deepen our understanding of how we perceive and interpret our environment.

How does neural activity control developmental synapse elimination? Here is a new review paper from the lab: Activity-dependent synaptic competition and dendrite pruning in developing mitral cells. www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu...

New paper from the lab: feedback from piriform cortex to the olfactory bulb carries identity and reward contingency signals in a multimodal (odor and sound) rule-reversal task. Feedback is re-formatted within seconds and reflects changes in the perceived rules of engagement. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Our perspective on designing electronic noses inspired by natural olfaction! #neuroscience #ChemSky 🧪

Olfaction is a Spatial Sense Review of Philosophy and Psychology And it is out! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Chilly #Chicago evening glow.

Interested in understanding how things work? In particular the tools you use to study the brain? Join us at TENSS 2025 where we brainstorm ideas, build and debug microscopes, electrophysiology and behavior rigs amidst the picturesque Transylvanian hills! tenss.ro Apply by: February 16th!

Very excited to be an instructor this coming summer in the @mblscience.bsky.social Neurobiology Course. The deadline for applications is fast approaching (1/27) - please consider joining us! Any interested students, please feel free to reach out with questions.

Spotlight: Ever noticed that food loses flavor when you have a cold. What's up with that? Your perception of flavor is not one sense. It is a mixing of taste, smell and chemosensation. Read about it in Ch8 Chemical Senses by Joe Zak & @jakesaunders.bsky.social tinyurl.com/itobnch8 #neuroscience

They say that when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To me every illuminated tree is a neuron. #neuroskyence #fluoresencefriday

Holiday neuron sculpture. #neuroskyence #neuroscience

Some gorgeous #Chicago scenes on the first day of winter break. Picasso at the Christkindlemarket and a fantastic deco.

We have a new warning sign for our lab entrance. Kai a postbac in our group is a fantastic artist and scientist heading to a master’s program in medical/science illustration this fall.

We experience the world through a multitude of senses, and yet most studies of sensory perception focus on one sensory modality at a time. Our paper on how odors affect sound processing in now published in Journal of Neuroscience (1/5). www.jneurosci.org/content/44/4...

Favorite science images #4. Adult-born granule cells in the olfactory bulb. #neuroskyence #olfaction

Had the once a season experience of catching the CTA holiday train. Delightful. #Chicago