jcap@lsu.edu
Office: (225) 578-1741
Lab: (225) 578-7182
My laboratory’s research is concerned with the physiology of the senses of taste and smell in fish. Fish are capable of detecting through either chemical sense extremely low levels of particular organic compounds in the environment. The primary experimental animal used in our research is the freshwater channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, which possesses well-developed olfactory and gustatory systems. The majority of our recent work involves studies of the processing of odor information from the receptor cell through to various regions of the forebrain. We are interested in questions related to the coding of odor information; i.e. the neural organization of the olfactory system that allows for the identification of the stimulus. Selected Publications
1. Nikonov, A.A. and Caprio, J. (2007) Highly specific olfactory receptor neurons for types of amino acids in the channel catfish. J. Neurophysiol. PDF1
2. Díaz, J., Razeto, P., Letelier, J-C, Caprio, J. and Bacigalupo, J. (2007) Amplitude modulation patterns of local field potentials reveal asynchronous neuronal populations. J. Neurosci. 27:9238-9245. PDF2
3. Rolen, S.H. and Caprio, J. (2007) Processing of bile salt odor information by single olfactory bulb neurons in the channel catfish. J. Neurophysiol. 97:4058-4068. PDF3.
4. Nikonov, A.A. and Caprio, J. (2007) Responses of olfactory forebrain units to amino acids in the channel catfish. J. Neurophysiol. 97:2490-2498. PDF4
5. Nikonov, A.A., Finger, T.E. and Caprio, J. (2005). Beyond the olfactory bulb: An odotopic map in forebrain. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102:18688-18693. PDF5
6. Nikonov, A.A. and Caprio, J. (2004) Odorant specificity of single olfactory bulb neurons to amino acids in the channel catfish. J Neurophysiol. 92:123-134, 2004. PDF6aPDF6b
7. Hansen, A., Rolen, S.H., Anderson, K., Morita, Y., Caprio, J. and Finger. T.E. (2003). Correlation between olfactory receptor cell type and function in the channel catfish. J. Neurosci. 23(27):9328-9339. PDF77. Hansen, A., Rolen, S.H., Anderson, K., Morita, Y., Caprio, J. and Finger. T.E. (2003). Correlation between olfactory receptor cell type and function in the channel catfish. J. Neurosci. 23(27):9328-9339. PDF7
8. Rolen, S.H., Sorensen, P. W., Mattson, D. and Caprio, J. (2003). Polyamines as olfactory stimuli in the goldfish, Carassius auratus. J. Exptl. Biol. 206:1683-1696. PDF8
9. Nikonov, A.A., Parker, J.M. and Caprio, J. (2002) Odorant-induced neural oscillations and their modulation of olfactory bulbar responses in the channel catfish. J. Neurosci. 22(6):2352-2362. PDF9
10. Nikonov, A.A. and Capro, J. (2001) Electrophysiological evidence for a chemotopy of biologically relevant odors in the olfactory bulb of the channel catfish. J. Neurophysiol.86(4):1869-1876. PDF10