Novel Olfactory Task to Study Airborne Odor-Guided Navigation in Rats Reveals a Robust Tracking Strategy Without Casting

Material below summarizes the article Robust and Rapid Air-Borne Odor Tracking Without Casting, published on November 5, 2015, in eNeuro and authored by Urvashi Bhattacharyya, and Upinder Singh Bhalla.

Animals are sensitive to the range and intensity of chemical cues that determine their social behavior and survival in the wild. The sense of smell is extraordinary in its ability to detect and guide animals across this range and inform them of cues such as food, predator, or mate. In a complex environment, stimuli could also comprise visual, auditory, or tactile inputs. Thus, it is important to study how animals change their strategy of odor localization based on the environment they interact with.

About the Contributors

Urvashi Bhattacharyya

Urvashi Bhattacharyya is a PhD candidate at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), TIFR Bangalore.

Upinder Bhalla, PhD

Upinder Bhalla is a professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR Bangalore, where he uses experimental and computational approaches to study learning and behavior. He has combined experimental and computer modeling to study brain function throughout his research career and is currently looking at the interplay between chemical and electrical signaling in hippocampal plasticity and learning of sequences.