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Our lab studies human olfaction. Our two main goals are (1) to elucidate the systems-level neurobiological mechanisms of olfactory processing, and (2) to elucidate ways in which chemical sensing effects human behavior. Methods currently used in our lab are functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), physiological monitoring, and olfactory psychophysics. Using these methods we have recently concentrated on the role of sniffing in olfactory processing. We have shown that because airflow is slightly different in each nostril, each nostril is in fact hyper tuned to better perceive different odorants. In other words, when humans take a sniff, each nostril conveys to the brain a slightly different olfactory image. We are now studying how the brain combines these two disparate images of the olfactory world into a single olfactory percept. In addition to this major project, other ongoing projects in our lab are: Using fMRI to ask how are odorants encoded in olfactory cortex; Using fMRI and psychophysics to ask if humans can spatially localize odorants; Using psychophysics to study the olfactory deficit in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease; Using fMRI, physiological recording, and psychophysics, to test for the existence of human pheromones, and the possibility of a functional human vomeronasal system. Selected Publications Mainland, J.D., Bremner, E.A., Young, N., Johnson, B.N., Khan, R.M., Bensafi, M., & Sobel, N. (2002). Olfactory plasticity: One nostril knows what the other learns. Nature 419 (6909): 802. Johnson, B.N., Mainland, J.D., & Sobel, N. (2003). Rapid olfactory processing implicates subcortical control of an olfactomotor system. J. Neurophysiology 90 (2): 1084-1094. Zelano, C., Bensafi, M., Porter, J., Mainland, J.D., Johnson, B.N., Bremner, E.A., Telles, C., Khan, R.M., Sobel, N. (2005). Attentional modulation in human primary olfactory cortex. Nature Neuroscience 8 (1): 114-120. Porter, J., Anand, T., Johnson, B.N., Khan, R.M., Sobel, N. (2005). Brain mechanisms for extracting spatial information from smell. Neuron 47 (4): 581-592. UC Berkeley Home | Contact Webmaster Copyright (c) 2005-2006 The Regents of the University of California |
