# Active sensation and search strategy during mouse odor plume-guided navigation

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · 2021 · $46,036

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Chemosensation is an evolutionarily conserved sensory modality throughout the living organisms.
Olfaction, one mode of chemosensation, has been shown to guide navigation and decision-making in animals of
different phyla within the kingdom. However, using olfaction as a sensory cue to guide navigation is a complex
problem. This is because the spread of odor molecules over large distances is governed by the chaotic and
turbulent flow of fluids from the source to the searcher. Hence, the olfactory information that an animal receives
dynamically varies along the different spatial scales. In spite of this complex sensory signal, rodents are
remarkable at locating sources of airborne odors from large distances. The stochastic olfactory information
during the naturalistic behavior of plume tracking then promotes adaptive motor behaviors to actively sense odor
information, and implementation of efficient behavioral strategies to locate odor sources. The rodent olfactory
system then serves as an excellent model to study how sensation guides motion and vice-versa in the
mammalian brain.
 Current technologies available for chemical quantification are not feasible to correlate real-time odor
inputs with behavior in freely moving animals. Hence, we first developed a method to record real-time olfactory
information using low-cost sensors that can be mounted on a mouse’s head. This method then allows
unprecedented level of analysis in studying how odor contacts guide behavior in plume-tracking mice. Here I
propose experiments to combine this method with behavioral tracking to understand active sensing of odor
information, and behavioral strategies employed during plume-tracking in mice engaged in odor-source
localization task. These behavioral studies will lay the foundation for the study of the neural bases of
sensorimotor integration during the naturalistic behavior of plume-tracking. Defining the neurophysiological
bases of odor-guided navigation will be instrumental for understanding how human brains integrate sensation
and motion, and treatment of disorders that alter this integration in disorders, such as schizophrenia and post-
traumatic stress disorder.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10386250
- **Project number:** 1F31DC018442-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Mohammad Farman Ul Haq Tariq
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $46,036
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10386250

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10386250, Active sensation and search strategy during mouse odor plume-guided navigation (1F31DC018442-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10386250. Licensed CC0.

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