The Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

Some genes evolved from an immune function to an olfactory role

Olfactory diagram

Researchers demonstrate how some genes evolved from an immune function to an olfactory role in some mammals. Mammals possess several lines of defense against microbes. One of them is activated when receptors called Fprs, which are present on immune cells, Read more…

To have flair: Practice makes perfect!

Alan Carleton link to video

The human brain has the ability to recognize and process a very wide range of sensory stimuli, from which it builds a mental representation. But do these representations change over time? Can we learn to classify and interpret stimuli more Read more…

Better learning through distinguishing

Olfactory bulbs

A study published in the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience describes work led by the University of Geneva’s (UNIGE) Faculties of Medicine and Sciences, on the indisputable role of the olfactory bulb in mammal brains’ ability to discriminate between smells. Read more…

Discovery of a neuronal population that filters sensory information


In the center:”Panache shaped” neurons population sent by olfactory sensory cells. Our five senses collect data for complex perceptual systems in the brain allowing us to make sense of the world around us. The stimuli entering the brain in the Read more…

How a wine taster gets a good nose


Professor Carleton’s group have just revealed that olfactory training leads to enhanced odorant detection and discrimination. They show that this happens by plasticity at early stages of odour processing in the sensory periphery in adults and endures after training. The Read more…

Sense of smell : nose and brain make quite a team… in disconnection

orchid in the brain

Visual retentivity of an orchid in the brain Alan Carleton’s team (UNIGE) has just shown that the representation of an odor evolves after the first breath, and that an olfactory retentivity persists at the central level. This research is published Read more…