New BBSRC-funded project explores how learning alters sensory processing

Dr Jamie Johnston, in collaboration with Dr Viktor Lukacs, has been awarded funding from the BBSRC for a £960,000 project exploring how the context of learning alters sensory processing.

We tend to think of learning as something that shapes memory. However, learning also alters perception itself, tuning how the brain takes in information from the world long before we are consciously aware of it. This project will examine how the olfactory system, our sense of smell, adjusts the way it encodes odours according to what they signify for an animal.

Using advanced imaging of brain activity in mice, together with behavioural studies and computational approaches, the researchers aim to reveal how early sensory circuits are reshaped by experience, and how these changes go on to influence perception and behaviour.

The findings will deepen our understanding of how the brain prioritises and filters the flood of sensory information it constantly receives, with potential relevance to fields ranging from sensory neuroscience and the study of learning and memory to artificial sensing and detection technologies.