Neural Mechanism of Olfactory Bottom-Up Attention

From very early on, babies are able to distinguish novel from familiar objects, pictures or sounds. Novel stimuli tend to be exciting and thus, given a choice, babies will spend much more time looking and investigating novel items than familiar ones. This so-called “orienting response” has been widely used by developmental psychologists to study learning and memory. Novelty processing is also affected by numerous psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and autism and it heavily impaired in neurodegenerative disease’s such as Alzheimer’s.

But why do novel stimuli catch our attention so rapidly and so efficiently? In this research project, we aim to reveal the mechanism underlying this phenomena. In previous work, we have established the framework to study the neural circuits for such bottom-up attentional process in mice using olfactory stimuli. By using innovative multielectrode recording and optogenetic techniques, we will selectively record and manipulate the activity of specific neurons and their inputs, to establish a causal relationship between neuronal activity and behavioral performance. This approach will allow us to obtain a mechanistic understanding of the brain circuits involved in novelty processing and ultimately supports the development of new therapies for cognitive disorders.