# Quantifying the role of adaptation in olfactory coding through the logic of navigation

> **NIH NIH F32** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $73,562

## Abstract

Project Summary
This project’s long-term goal is a fuller understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of olfactory sensory
adaptation that facilitate odor discrimination in the natural world. To confront the wide fluctuations in intensity and
temporal variability that are characteristic of natural odor environments, animals have evolved refined neurosensory
mechanisms for parsing behaviorally-relevant signals such as pheromones from background nuisance odors. This
project seeks to elucidate how adaptive mechanisms in the olfactory periphery play a central role in this discrimination
task. The project will utilize a novel behavioral assay that permits precise quantification of the logic used by insects
in navigating complex, temporally dynamic odor environments. By combining this assay with data analytic methods
and machine learning, a comprehensive lexicon of archetypal navigational strategies of insect odor navigation will
be derived. Importantly, since both odors and insects can be simultaneously tracked in this assay, the project will
uncover strategies employed by insects in not just static, but also fluctuating odor landscapes. By quantifying how
these strategies modulate in time, the role of memory in shaping navigational strategies will also be determined.
The project will then leverage this dictionary of navigational logic to quantify how various mechanisms of adaptation
in Drosophila olfactory receptor neurons can shape odor discrimination. Importantly, this project will examine the
role of olfactory sensory adaptation in an ethologically-relevant way, by connecting mechanisms that operate at the
level of sensory input with neural computations that affect output behavior. Further, since the behavioral assay tracks
complex odor environments simultaneous with freely-moving insects, the impact of behavior on future signal
acquisition – behavioral feedback onto odor stimuli – is fully maintained. The behavioral experiments and data
analysis in this project utilize the tractable, highly-characterized system of Drosophila melanogaster, in which a
wealth of existing genetic tools will allow directed experimentation of specific adaptive mechanisms in olfaction.
The results of this project will elucidate how insects effectively navigate complex odor environments, and how
olfactory systems maintain sensitivity despite odor conflicts and temporal variability.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10105369
- **Project number:** 5F32MH118700-03
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Nirag Kadakia
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $73,562
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-03-01 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10105369

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10105369, Quantifying the role of adaptation in olfactory coding through the logic of navigation (5F32MH118700-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10105369. Licensed CC0.

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