Robin De Plus

When novel stimuli are detected, animals react with exploratory behaviors driven by the senses. From the perspective of the animal’s survival, it is critical to perceive, process, and recognize novel odors, for example in recognizing new predators. In recent years, advances are made in the understanding of the olfactory system and perception, however, mechanisms, like novel odor perception and processing, are still not understood.

During my master thesis, I am studying the role of the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON) concerning novel odor detection, since we previously have shown that the AON has unique neural response properties to novel stimuli.