Topic: novelty detection

In nature, diverse sensory signals fluctuate in time and in space. Odors, for example, are distorted by wind into narrow filaments. When multiple spatially distinct odor sources exist, these filaments interleave but do not intermix. Such odor landscapes pose complementary challenges to animals – such as the fruit fly – that depend on olfaction to find food or mating partners. First, to select the best odor to track back to its source, the olfactory system must compare information from different filaments over relatively long timescales. Second, to remain on high alert to unexpected changes, su

Novelty is an attribute of a stimulus that lacks a pre-existing representation and novelty detection involves a series of interrelated processes, each playing a unique role. Different medial temporal lobe structures including the hippocampus have been highly implicated to play a major role in novelty detection. In this project, we aim to understand how CA1 of the hippocampus encodes novelty and familiarity signals induced by unimodal and multimodal sensory stimuli and what are the processes that mediate the transition between novelty and familiarity. We plan to use a multisensory cue delivery

Across animal species, novel stimuli elicit arousal and evoke sensory inspection and exploration. This type of spontaneous curiosity critically relies on the animals’ ability to identify the novelty of a sensory stimulus against previously experienced stimuli. However, since familiarity is characterized by the absence of a behavioural responses, passive novelty detection tasks involve asymmetric motor responses which can confound the analysis of neural signals. To address this limitation, I established a two alternative forced choice novelty detection task which offers the opportunity to inves