Javier How

Javier How is a Ph.D. student in Neurosciences at UC San Diego and in Saket Navlakha’s lab at the Salk Institute. He is currently collaborating with Shrek Chalasani to study how odors are encoded in the nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. To that end, he is using calcium imaging on half of the worm’s brain in order to describe how the network distinguishes between attractive and aversive odors, and how the representation of an odor changes with learning. He hopes to find that there are general principles at work in the worm, fruit fly, and mouse.