Investigating the mechanism underlying the habituation of neural and behavioral responses to novel stimuli.

Neural stability to retain skills and stimulus associations while adapting to new circumstances is
crucial for an animal’s survival. Neural systems need to be both flexible and stable to adjust rapidly
to new events and preserve learned behaviors, respectively. Plasticity can be evoked through several
mechanisms, including extensive stimulus exposure, which leads to a progressive reduction in
behavioral responses. This is also known as habituation. Despite much progress in describing
habituation at the early sensory stages, the circuit mechanism underlying plastic changes of stimulus
representations is poorly understood.
The senses of olfaction has a crucial influence on memories, emotions, and social interactions.
Moreover, olfactory habituation is a fundamental process that affects everyday life such as the
habituation of environmental bad smells such as byproducts of factories or body odors. It is therefore
important to investigate the mechanism behind habituation in the olfactory system. Yet the study of
olfactory habituation has received little attention.
My project focuses on characterizing the mechanism underlying olfactory habituation and the brain
regions involved. We will unravel which olfactory regions and neurotransmitters are involved in
habituation by modulating olfactory brain regions, the input of neuromodulatory systems, and
characterizing how they change both the activity of the brain regions in question and the behavior of
the mouse.