NSF Ideas Lab - Cracking the Olfactory Code

嗅觉是一种进化上的原始感觉，对动物王国的生存至关重要——寻找食物、寻找配偶或躲避捕食者都依赖于探测、识别和区分气味。虽然嗅觉处理的早期步骤相对来说已经被很好地理解了，但我们对正在进行的行为中的高阶气味表征和处理的理解仍然存在重大差距。破译嗅觉的运作原理需要发展创新和综合的方法，结合新的理论框架，改进的数学模型，以及跨系统发育谱，实验方法和工程原理的新的行为范式。这个为期5天的研讨会，即所谓的“创意实验室”，旨在通过汇集来自不同科学背景的研究人员来解决这一挑战，产生新的思维和创新的方法，这些方法将改变对行为背景下嗅觉处理的理解，同时产生新的机会来阐明大脑中感觉表征的一般性质。参与者将合作发展和磨练关于研究嗅觉处理的新想法和方法，然后使用这些想法和方法开发多学科研究项目，这些项目包含真正创新和潜在的嗅觉编码研究。组织者将作出巨大努力，邀请妇女、代表性不足的群体成员和各级学术调查人员参加讲习班。参与者将包括10-15名定量研究人员和15-20名神经科学家。讲习班的一个组成部分是广泛的跨学科互动，这将由同意担任导师并将指导项目发展过程的来自关键学科的五位主要科学家促进。重要的是，这次研讨会是协调和调整机构间优先事项以实现BRAIN倡议目标的共同努力的一部分。本次研讨会预计将产生高度创新的研究建议，将理论和计算方法与神经科学相结合，以阐明大脑中嗅觉处理和感觉表征的本质。

Olfaction is an evolutionarily primitive sense critical for survival across the animal kingdom - finding food, searching for mates, or avoiding predation all depend on detecting, identifying, and discriminating odors. Although early steps in olfactory processing are relatively well understood, significant gaps remain in our understanding of higher-order odor representations and processing during on-going behavior. Deciphering the operating principles of olfaction requires the development of innovative and integrative approaches that combine novel theoretical frameworks, improved mathematical models, and novel behavioral paradigms across the phylogenetic spectrum, experimental methodologies, and engineering principles. The objectives of this 5-day workshop, a so-called "Ideas Lab", is to address this challenge by bringing together researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds to engender fresh thinking and innovative approaches that will transform understanding of olfactory processing in behavioral contexts while spawning new opportunities to elucidate the general nature of sensory representations in the brain. The participants will work collaboratively to develop and hone novel ideas about and approaches to investigate olfactory processing, and then use these ideas and approaches to develop multidisciplinary research projects that contain genuinely innovative and potentially transformative investigations on olfactory coding. The organizers will make a strong effort to invite women, members of underrepresented groups, and investigators at all academic levels as workshop participants. Participants will include 10-15 quantitative researchers and 15-20 neuroscientists. An integral aspect of the workshop is extensive cross-disciplinary interaction, which will be facilitated by five leading scientists from key disciplines who have agreed to serve as mentors and will guide the project development process. Importantly, this workshop is part of a concerted effort to coordinate and align interagency priorities to accomplish the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. The workshop is anticipated to result in the development of highly innovative research proposals that integrate theoretical and computational approaches with neuroscience toward the goal of elucidating the nature of olfactory processing and sensory representations in the brain in general.