Our latest paper in PLoS Biology was a great project. We show that the human olfactory system seems to code mainly odor perception (rated intensity), not physical properties (concentration). Fantastic work by @nordenneuro.bsky.social, @artinarshamian.bsky.social, Irene Zanettin, and Mikael Lundkvist

Frans Nordén@nordenneuro.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Excited to share our new paper in PLOS Biology! We asked a simple question: when we perceive an odor as weak or strong, does oscillations in the human olfactory system represent the physical concentration of the odor, or our subjective perception of its intensity? 🧵👇

How can some smells seem stronger than others despite equivalent odor concentrations? @nordenneuro.bsky.social &co show that coordinated neural activity between #OlfactoryBulb & #PiriformCortex tracks how intensely an odor is perceived (rather than concentration) @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4fQxXR5

Hiring a postdoc to do something nobody has done: record oscillatory signals from the human olfactory epithelium in awake humans. PhD in neuroscience, biomedical engineering, or adjacent. Real electrophysiology experience: single-unit, intracranial, or peripheral. Olfactory background optional.

“For 30 years, we’ve taught students that the mouse olfactory epithelium is divided into a handful of broad zones, within which receptor choice is essentially random,” @odorjohan.bsky.social told me. Now we know it's not random. My latest for @nature.com 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

First detailed ‘smell maps’ reveal how noses track odours

Detailed maps of smell receptors in the nose overturn textbook models of olfactory receptor organization in mice.

nature.com

We are advertising for a postdoc with skills in psychophysiological measurement for a project on smell and emotions. Closing date is 30th October. Please spread the word. www.stir.ac.uk/about/work-a...

🍲🍲 NEW PAPER 🍰🍰 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Food choices are always a tradeoff between the benefits of energy intake and the risk of accidental contamination. The relative importance of these two varies depending on a person's current metabolic need. (1/3)

Sensitivity to contamination of food odours depends on hunger and attention

Detection of deviant notes in food odours protects against accidental contaminant ingestion, but this risk needs to be weighed against the potential c…

sciencedirect.com

Methodological determinants of signal quality in electrobulbogram recordings https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.01.662502v1

Karolinska Institutet is now advertising 20 Assistant Professor positions. One of them focus on AI in brain and behavior. If you quit, apply and come work with us! 🙂

Johan Lundstrom@odorjohan.bsky.social · last yr.

1/3 I spent 10 years running a lab in Philadelphia and then decided to return to Europe and continue in a more family friendly environment. Best decision of my life! You can now do the same by applying to one of these 20 assistant professor positions at Karolinska Institutet ki.se/en/about-ki/...

‼️🚨 postdoc position 🚨‼️ I am looking for a postdoc in psychoneuroimmunology - come join our group to work on sickness behavior in humans 🤒🦠 at Karolinska Institutet @ki.se !! ki.varbi.com/en/what:job/... deadline July 31st @pnirs.bsky.social #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky #interoception

Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychoneuroimmunology

Do you want to contribute to improving human health? Join a dynamic and inclusive research group at the forefront of psychoneuroimmunology, where we investigate the interplay between behavior, brain f

ki.varbi.com

If you are in neuroscience and interested in applying for a position in Sweden at Karolinska Institutet (either one of the 20 assistant professorships or the "distinguish professor" track - se previous post by me), read more about neuroscience at KI here: ki.se/en/research/... Come join us!

The Strategic Research Area Neuroscience (StratNeuro)

The strategic research area neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, Umeå University and KTH has the mission to integrate clinical and basic research and to foster a new generation of leaders and scient...

ki.se

Johan Lundstrom@odorjohan.bsky.social · last yr.

1/3 I spent 10 years running a lab in Philadelphia and then decided to return to Europe and continue in a more family friendly environment. Best decision of my life! You can now do the same by applying to one of these 20 assistant professor positions at Karolinska Institutet ki.se/en/about-ki/...

1/3 I spent 10 years running a lab in Philadelphia and then decided to return to Europe and continue in a more family friendly environment. Best decision of my life! You can now do the same by applying to one of these 20 assistant professor positions at Karolinska Institutet ki.se/en/about-ki/...

Time for Europe to realize that the US is no longer our friend and ally. At most, we will be partners in isolated questions when our views align. The US government now have the same "might makes right" world view as Russia and China. Europe need to adjust accordingly.

🧵Meet the Pupillary Respiratory-Phase Response (PRP): pupils constrict during inhalation and dilate during exhalation. It is the fourth known mechanism influencing pupil size, alongside the pupillary light, near fixation, and psychosensory responses.

If you are interested in the science of smells, listen to my take on how, and why, snow smells. On the Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social show.

Science Friday@scifri.bsky.social · last yr.

If you know snow, you might know that it has a particular crisp, clean smell. Dr. Johan Lundström, snow aficionado and professor of psychology, joins us to talk about the science behind that snowy smell.

If you have 2 minutes to spare, please help us out by telling us what odors come to mind (and share this). We are mostly looking for people living in Sweden, but happy to get all of the world redcap.ki.se/redcap/surve... No payment I'm afraid, but you get a gold star if you do it and/or spread it!

redcap.ki.se

If I can offer brief but useful advice it would be to send your drafts chapter by chapter to your supervisor as early as possible - if you send it all at once you'll have a month or 2 of downtime where you can't really do anything but wait for feedback

The limiting factor for MRI based prediction of behavioral traits may be neither the imaging nor the pipeline or learning algorith but rather the reliability of the target phenotypes Thought provoking work my Martin Gell et al: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How measurement noise limits the accuracy of brain-behaviour predictions - Nature Communications

Our ability to identify associations between behaviour and brain imaging is important for uncovering markers of cognition and disease. Here, the authors illustrate the importance of the reliability of...

nature.com

We have a fresh new paper! The PhD project of the talented Mark Conway. A learning-induced change in the sensitivity of olfactory receptor neurons enables consistent perception of an odor. #olfaction #neuroscience www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Perceptual constancy for an odor is acquired through changes in primary sensory neurons

Learning-induced changes in primary sensory neurons support concentration-invariant perception of an odor.

science.org

This has been such a pleasure to work on and make new friends across the senses! In this review, we compare the evidence for perceptual penetrability across the senses-that is, to what extent cognition shapes experience as opposed to biasing it. High in olfaction, low in gustation is my take home :)

Nature Reviews Psychology@natrevpsychol.nature.com · 2y ago

Evaluating cognitive penetrability of perception across the senses Review by Petra Vetter, Stephanie Badde, Elisa Raffaella Ferrè, Janina Seubert & Barbara Shinn-Cunningham Web: go.nature.com/4hOrQeV PDF: rdcu.be/d0K0k #psychology #psychscisky #cogpsy

Favorite science image #3 olfactory bulb glomeruli. #neuroskyence #neuroscience

Before I go to bed let me post an amazing paper by Filipe Pereira’s group (Ervin Ascic et al) for your enjoyment. I think this is a likely fundamental breakthrough in cancer immunotherapy: personalized, yet generic and probably pan-cancer. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In vivo dendritic cell reprogramming for cancer immunotherapy

Immunotherapy can lead to long-term survival for some cancer patients, yet generalized success has been hampered by insufficient antigen presentation and exclusion of immunogenic cells from the tumor ...

science.org

Ever wondered what plague smelled like? Probably not but I wrote an entry on it for the Encyclopedia of Smell History and Heritage! Masterminded by @willtullett.bsky.social this is your go-to resource for the history of olfaction. #historysmells encyclopedia.odeuropa.eu/items/show/2...

Interested in the sense of smell? An olfaction starter pack might be for you.

Moritz Engelhardt @moritzengelhardt.bsky.social · 2y ago

Seeing many new #olfaction researches on Bluesky, nice! I made a starter pack for researchers and groups studying the sense of smell or taste. If you want to get added let me know. go.bsky.app/xfXg9B

If you have 2 minutes to spare, help us by listing odors that come to mind. We are mostly looking for people living in Sweden, but are happy to get responses from all of the world! redcap.ki.se/redcap/surveys… If the link won't work, we are at our IRB-approved participant limit 🙂

Are you an early career scientist and want to attend the ISOT conference this summer in Iceland? Consider applying for ECRO travel support. More here: www.ecro.online/meetings/iso...

Me: Draw a brain with the olfactory bulb and piriform cortex marked. ChatGpt: The illustration of the human brain with the olfactory bulb and piriform cortex marked is now available. Me: Yeah, it seems pretty reasonable. Thanks!

Interesting (short) text on the topic of growing pain in children - is it facy or myth? [if you don't have 1 minute to use; it's a myth]. McGill U, my old home, produces allot of these short informative texts on interesting topics. Highly recommend checking them out. www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/...

The biggest contrast between "boring headline" and "amazing lede" I've ever seen.

Happy New Year! If you're celebrating with champagne, here's some chemistry behind the bubbles: wp.me/p4aPLT-SA

My experience as an editor is that it’s really hard to find reviewers during the month of December. Sometimes waiting to submit until January actually gets you a shorter turnaround time.