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UID:2026090511131520260910T16000020260910T1700006a9bf94b9589f@uic.edu
CATEGORIES:MEETING
STATUS:TENTATIVE
DTSTAMP:20260713T011201
DTSTART:20260910T160000
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SUMMARY:Departmental Seminar: Peripheral and central mechanisms of sensory coding in the olfactory system by Dr. Joseph Zak
DESCRIPTION:Departmental Seminar:  Peripheral and central mechanisms of sensory coding in the olfactory system by. Dr. Joseph Zak    Abstract:    The olfactory system offers a uniquely tractable window into how the brain constructs perception from physical signals in the environment. My laboratory investigates this process at three levels. First, we ask how individual sensory neurons in the nose filter and encode odor information. Using in vivo imaging of the olfactory epithelium, we have shown that a calcium-activated chloride channel, TMEM16B, functions as a molecular amplifier that sets the activation threshold of sensory neurons and directly shapes the sparseness of the odor code transmitted to the brain. Second, we ask how the brain interprets this information. By simultaneously imaging sensory input and cortical feedback in the olfactory bulb, we found that higher brain areas send a consistently sparse, decorrelated signal back to the first sensory synapse regardless of odor complexity, consistent with a predictive coding framework in which the brain filters out expected input. Third, we ask how internal physiological states reshape olfactory sensitivity. We have found that chronic stress and metabolic state drive reactive changes in cortical microglia and neural signaling properties related to odor sensitivity. Together, these projects reveal sensory processing principles that contribute to our understanding of how the brain builds a coherent representation of the world from the signals it receives.    Zoom: https://uic.zoom.us/j/86417110567?pwd=WVQxUzBVYkpHb1ZLOVJxaDVBaEoydz09 | Event post: https://bios.uic.edu/events?page_id=12578
LOCATION:4289 SELE    Select 
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