Perception, decision making and behavior depend on detecting and responding appropriately to sensory information. However, the mechanisms to encode sensory cues, and how those signals are transformed into a neural code that we perceive and act on remains poorly understood. How do organisms recognize and distinguish between the wide range of sensory cues they experience throughout life? How do animals segment behaviorally relevant sensory information from noise in the background? How does the internal state of an organism influence how these processes occur? The laboratory of Dr. Storace uses live imaging techniques in mouse olfactory system to understand this relationship.