Dinu Florin Albeanu

Assistant Professor
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

PhD, Harvard University

Phone: (516) 367-8822

Fax (516) 367-8866

albeanu@cshl.edu,

Please visit Albeanu's Lab home page.

Research

We use multiphoton imaging, optogenetic tools and electrophysiological measurements to study how sensory systems encode information from the environment, how these inputs are processed at different junctions or synapses of the underlying neuronal circuits and how these representations change with the state of the system and its circuits. The broad scope of this effort is observing how perceptions arise.

To understand any brain area or neuro-circuit, we broadly address the following questions:
1) What are the inputs and how are they represented? 
2) What kinds of operations are performed on these inputs as they are transferred among the members of the circuit?
3) How are these operations implemented in terms of the local connectivity, as well as feedback from other brain areas?
4) What role does the circuit play in enforcing particular behaviors?

The olfactory system, particularly the olfactory bulb and cortex, in rodents provides us with an ideal substrate to answer these questions, given their well-defined circuitry, multi-layered organization and robust behaviors.