Zelano Lab
Principal Investigator: Christina Maria Zelano
Institution: Northwestern University (Chicago, IL)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
Rhythms and temporal references are critical aspects of odor coding in the brain. In rodents, the environment is sampled at a ~4-12 Hz (theta range) sniffing rate, which coordinates activity across the olfactory system, setting a time reference for odor responses. Numerous studies suggest that in rodent olfaction, neuronal responses are tuned to the phase of the sniff rhythm: Odor information is encoded both in the number of spikes fired per sniff cycle and in the timing of those spikes relative to sniff phase. Furthermore, odors evoke olfactory bulb activity that is precisely sniff-locked, with single- cell firing times tiling the duration of the sniff cycle. The timing of these responses is tightly locked to sniff phase, with exceptional precision across trials. Thus, in rodents, the sniff cycle is the fundamental temporal unit of olfactory neural processing. How these findings translate to humans, who typically take single long (3 to 5 s) sniffs when encountering odors, is unknown. The overarching goal of this proposal is to understand the fundamental principles of rhythmic neural processing in the human olfactory bulb. Our overarching hypothesis, which is supported by prelimina…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R01DC023374-01A1: Mapping human olfactory bulb local field potential oscillations (2026)
- 5R01DC021663-03: Electrophysiological representations of odor in the human brain (2026)
- 5R01DC021663-02: Electrophysiological representations of odor in the human brain (2025)
- 5R01DC018539-05: Characterizing the primary olfactory subregions of the human amygdala (2025)
- 5R01DC015426-10: Principles of olfactory reward processing in the human brain (2025)
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