Joseph D. Zak
@josephdzak.bsky.social
Neurobiologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago studying sensory cells and neural circuits. #Neuroscience and #Olfaction.
https://www.zak-lab.org
https://www.zak-lab.org
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Excited to share our new preprint for this project!
How do past sensory experiences prepare us for new ones? Our new paper tackles this long-standing question, revealing a role for activity sequences in the olfactory bulb. Excited to share our work led by @jonvgill.bsky.social with Mursel Karadas & Shy Shoham
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
January 26, 2026 at 5:40 PM
Excited to share our new preprint for this project!
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Cool. Smell in the spider brain. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Presumed Glomerular Neuropils in the Central Nervous Systems of Spiders (Araneae)
Spiders sense chemicals in their environment with particular sensory hairs (sensilla) on their legs and feelers. Chemosensory neurons inside these sensilla send their axons into the central nervous s...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 5, 2026 at 10:08 AM
Cool. Smell in the spider brain. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
I am thrilled to share our latest work led by @zurisullivan.bsky.social in collaboration with @moffittlab.bsky.social ! We find that the brain encodes distinct, pathogen-specific sickness states across behavior, physiology, neural activity, and gene expression 1/6
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
December 9, 2025 at 12:05 PM
I am thrilled to share our latest work led by @zurisullivan.bsky.social in collaboration with @moffittlab.bsky.social ! We find that the brain encodes distinct, pathogen-specific sickness states across behavior, physiology, neural activity, and gene expression 1/6
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Another new paper from the lab: Predictive theories like the SR imply that navigators who navigate differently should have cognitive maps which differ in predictable ways. Here we show that this holds in mouse hippocampal CA1.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Environmental representations in mouse hippocampal CA1 reflect the predictive structure of navigation
Predictive theories of cognitive mapping propose that these representations encode the predictive relationships among contents as experienced by the n…
www.sciencedirect.com
December 8, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Another new paper from the lab: Predictive theories like the SR imply that navigators who navigate differently should have cognitive maps which differ in predictable ways. Here we show that this holds in mouse hippocampal CA1.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
First paper from the lab!
We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits
Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social
We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits
Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social
Simultaneous detection and estimation in olfactory sensing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.01.686013v1
November 4, 2025 at 3:40 PM
First paper from the lab!
We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits
Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social
We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits
Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social
Chicago is definitely burning. Just not in the way the news wants to portray.
October 7, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Chicago is definitely burning. Just not in the way the news wants to portray.
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Beyond Wolbachia—Can a small molecule control insect reproduction?
Kaur et al. demonstrate reduced histone acetylation as a key mechanism underpinning
Wolbachia’s paternal-effect embryonic lethality trait in Drosophila melanogaster.
Recapitulation of this trait by in...
www.cell.com
October 3, 2025 at 12:58 PM
#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Very excited to see this out in the world. It was fun to play a (small) part in it.
This was a truly collaborative effort and will open new avenues to probe social cognition and collective behavior. Huge thanks to the amazing team who made this cooperation😁 possible! @esschaffer.bsky.social @nuttidanuttida.bsky.social @talmo.bsky.social @nan-mssm.bsky.social (5/5)
September 5, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Very excited to see this out in the world. It was fun to play a (small) part in it.
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Octopuses sense environmental microbiomes to drive predatory and parental behaviors. Artwork by Lily Soucy. #evolution #sensation #microbiome @cellpress.bsky.social
September 4, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Octopuses sense environmental microbiomes to drive predatory and parental behaviors. Artwork by Lily Soucy. #evolution #sensation #microbiome @cellpress.bsky.social
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Excited to share our latest!! Thanks to everyone involved especially @neurovenki.bsky.social!
Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.
Mice navigate scent trails using predictive policies
Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...
www.biorxiv.org
September 2, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Excited to share our latest!! Thanks to everyone involved especially @neurovenki.bsky.social!
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.
Mice navigate scent trails using predictive policies
Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...
www.biorxiv.org
September 1, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.
Proud to share Kai Clane Belonio’s latest work in our lab. Kai showed that induced-depression decreases behavioral tolerance of aversive odorants as well as increases in neuroinflammation in sensory affective areas. Also contributing are @nervenkidd.bsky.social and Eyerusalem Haile.
Neuroinflammation in Olfactory Circuits Underlies Odor Hypersensitivity in a Rodent Model of Depression https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670114v1
August 20, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Proud to share Kai Clane Belonio’s latest work in our lab. Kai showed that induced-depression decreases behavioral tolerance of aversive odorants as well as increases in neuroinflammation in sensory affective areas. Also contributing are @nervenkidd.bsky.social and Eyerusalem Haile.
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!
We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️
We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️
July 23, 2025 at 3:06 PM
🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!
We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️
We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️
Some campus brutalism to accompany this brutal heatwave.
July 2, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Some campus brutalism to accompany this brutal heatwave.
Good thought, but I don’t know for sure about lipofuscin. I’m not surprised in the least that you see them at 8w. They can be apparent even in juveniles.
June 26, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Good thought, but I don’t know for sure about lipofuscin. I’m not surprised in the least that you see them at 8w. They can be apparent even in juveniles.
These are super common especially in the glomerular layer. Tons of autofluorescent accumulation in both red and green. They are aggregations of some sort and often increase with the age of the animal. I assume they are extracellular plaques.
June 26, 2025 at 9:01 PM
These are super common especially in the glomerular layer. Tons of autofluorescent accumulation in both red and green. They are aggregations of some sort and often increase with the age of the animal. I assume they are extracellular plaques.
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
@shawn-anthony.bsky.social helped ~20 undergrads learn transcriptomics in this budget friendly investigation into the dogbane family. A fun way to investigate the molecular evolution of the group. Also, a chance to collaborate with @phylonatworks.bsky.social and Jarrad! doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Going green: Recycling transcriptomes to infer evolutionary relationships, gene duplication, gene tree conflict, and patterns of molecular evolution in the Apocynaceae
Background and Aims: The flowering plant family Apocynaceae exhibits diverse adaptations with biological and pharmaceutical significance, many of which have been studied with RNA-seq. However, despite...
doi.org
June 26, 2025 at 3:43 PM
@shawn-anthony.bsky.social helped ~20 undergrads learn transcriptomics in this budget friendly investigation into the dogbane family. A fun way to investigate the molecular evolution of the group. Also, a chance to collaborate with @phylonatworks.bsky.social and Jarrad! doi.org/10.1101/2025...
That lab space looks awfully familiar 🤔
June 24, 2025 at 5:45 PM
That lab space looks awfully familiar 🤔
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Animals’ sniffing drives rhythmic input to the olfactory system.
How does this timing contribute to perception, especially beyond first steps of olfactory processing?
We tested this using simple closed-loop optogenetics in our new paper: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
How does this timing contribute to perception, especially beyond first steps of olfactory processing?
We tested this using simple closed-loop optogenetics in our new paper: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
Decoding olfactory bulb output: A behavioral assessment of rate, synchrony, and respiratory phase coding
Neurogenetics; Behavioral neuroscience; Sensory neuroscience
www.cell.com
June 13, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Animals’ sniffing drives rhythmic input to the olfactory system.
How does this timing contribute to perception, especially beyond first steps of olfactory processing?
We tested this using simple closed-loop optogenetics in our new paper: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
How does this timing contribute to perception, especially beyond first steps of olfactory processing?
We tested this using simple closed-loop optogenetics in our new paper: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
Congrats, Paul! This is fantastic!
June 5, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Congrats, Paul! This is fantastic!
What a special place. So grateful for all the friendships, learning, and science that fullfilled my time @harvard.edu.
June 3, 2025 at 9:10 PM
What a special place. So grateful for all the friendships, learning, and science that fullfilled my time @harvard.edu.
Proud of @nervenkidd.bsky.social (Zach Fyke), a graduate student in our group, for being recognized by @uicbios.bsky.social for both his research AND teaching over the past academic year.
Here are links to some of his recent work:
tinyurl.com/37vw5s5f
tinyurl.com/23zu458t
tinyurl.com/3mmjvw83
Here are links to some of his recent work:
tinyurl.com/37vw5s5f
tinyurl.com/23zu458t
tinyurl.com/3mmjvw83
May 14, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Proud of @nervenkidd.bsky.social (Zach Fyke), a graduate student in our group, for being recognized by @uicbios.bsky.social for both his research AND teaching over the past academic year.
Here are links to some of his recent work:
tinyurl.com/37vw5s5f
tinyurl.com/23zu458t
tinyurl.com/3mmjvw83
Here are links to some of his recent work:
tinyurl.com/37vw5s5f
tinyurl.com/23zu458t
tinyurl.com/3mmjvw83
Congrats, Rachel! Well-deserved.
May 12, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Congrats, Rachel! Well-deserved.
Reposted by Joseph D. Zak
Maps are everywhere in the brain...and finally we've discovered one in the nose! Led by @davidhbrann.bsky.social, we uncovered the logic that specifies the positions of each of the 1,000 sensory neuron subtypes in the nose and aligns their projections to the brain.👇👃see more details below👃👇
A spatial code governs olfactory receptor choice and aligns sensory maps in the nose and brain
Although topographical maps organize many peripheral sensory systems, it remains unclear whether olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) choose which of the ~1100 odor receptors (ORs) to express based upon t...
www.biorxiv.org
May 9, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Maps are everywhere in the brain...and finally we've discovered one in the nose! Led by @davidhbrann.bsky.social, we uncovered the logic that specifies the positions of each of the 1,000 sensory neuron subtypes in the nose and aligns their projections to the brain.👇👃see more details below👃👇
One of our new favorite images for #fluoresencefriday. Graduate student, Lindsay Vivona, labeled fibers from each anterior olfactory nucleus hemisphere as they bidirectionally pass through the anterior commissure. #neuroskyence #olfaction
May 9, 2025 at 5:46 PM
One of our new favorite images for #fluoresencefriday. Graduate student, Lindsay Vivona, labeled fibers from each anterior olfactory nucleus hemisphere as they bidirectionally pass through the anterior commissure. #neuroskyence #olfaction