Erin Johnson is presently a grants administration specialist at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research (Kansas City, MO). [LinkedIn]
My research is focused on understanding how perceptual learning, an increase in the acuity of a stimulus as a result of previous experience, modulates neurogenesis, olfactory behavior and odor perception. Currently, my work focuses on understanding how the time course of perceptual learning influences odor representation and the stability of those representations over time, as well as understanding what role adult-born neurons may play in these computations. In particular, I produce perceptual learning via olfactory enrichment, use simple behavioral tasks to probe changes in odor representation as a result of perceptual learning, and perform immunohistochemistry for BrdU to measure perceptual learning-induced changes on adult-born neuron survival.