GoingToMeet

The goal of this Keystone meeting is to bring together both pioneers and newcomers to the neurobiology of the chemical senses to discuss the development and function of neuronal circuits that underlie the perception of odorants, tastants, and pheromones. In the decade since the identification of molecular receptors for chemosensory stimuli, the field is increasingly moving toward questions of how sensory circuits are assembled during development and how they function in mediating chemosensory perception. Researchers are elucidating the molecules and mechanisms that pattern connections from the periphery to the brain. Using electrophysiological and imaging techniques, information processing is being studied mostly at the periphery. However, there is little information about how information is propagated from lower pathways to the cortex (or equivalent) and other higher brain regions. This meeting will highlight recent results using developmental, electrophysiological, functional imaging, and behavioral approaches to elucidate how chemosensory signals are processed in invertebrate and vertebrate model systems, ranging from nematode, fruit fly, zebrafish, mouse, rat, non-human primate to human.