Department News News Archive

News archive

Tag: Venkatesh Murthy

FOLLOW YOUR NOSE….. BUT NOT ALWAYS [MURTHY LAB]

Animals balance efficiency and flexibility during natural behavior to make their decisions in different contexts. In a recent study published in Current Biology (PDF) the Murthy lab has…

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HOW THE SEROTONIN SYSTEM INFLUENCES SENSORY PROCESSING [MURTHY LAB]

Brains process external information rapidly at a sub-second time scale, which is set by the dynamic electrophysiological properties of neurons and the fast communication within neuronal populations. This…

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VENKI MURTHY ORGANIZES OLFACTORY SUMMIT IN SANTA BARBARA

Venki Murthy returned this week from his summer "vacation" in balmy Santa Barbara, CA, where he coordinated an eight-week program on the ins and outs of olfaction. Hosted…

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DETECTION OF TARGET ODORS FROM MIXTURES [MURTHY LAB]

Natural environments are rich with sensory stimuli. To make sense of the sensory clutter, animals must segregate objects of interest from ever varying backgrounds. Our visual system is…

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POSTDOC PROFILE: DAVID GIRE [MURTHY LAB]

David Gire paved his path-to-the-postdoc with collaboration and interdisciplinary inspiration. At Silver Creek High School in San Jose, CA, Gire’s AP Biology/Biotech teacher, Mark Okuda (soon to become…

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FEEDBACK CIRCUITS IN OLFACTION [MURTHY LAB]

What is the function of a sensory system? One straightforward idea is that it strives to create a complete and accurate internal representation of the external world, which…

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VOLUME CONTROL AT THE SYNAPSE [MURTHY LAB]

You can't miss it in the news these days: neuroscientists are excited about anatomical reconstruction of neural connectivity. In fact, the term "connectomics" is a frequently-edited entry in…

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SMELL YOUR FRIENDS FROM YOUR ENEMIES!

Unlike humans, most animals rely heavily on scents to collect information about their external environment, and in particular assess the friendly or not-so-friendly nature of encounters with other…

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MICE THAT SMELL LIGHT

Olfaction is a critical sense for many animals, guiding their foraging behavior, mate choice and predator avoidance. Mice use ~1000 odorant receptor types in the main olfactory system…

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