The aspects I am interested in most are:
1) What is the functional organization of the AL, i.e. how is the incoming information from the receptor neurons modified by the AL network? Here, we use physiological measurements, selective staining (Marcel Weidert, Silke Sachse) and pharmacological tools (Arno Schlick) as well as odour mixture processing (Angelika Rappert) and analysis of complex stimulus patterns. Mathematical tools are developed by Martin Stetter, Technical University Berlin, to separate different signal sources in the data. The olfactory code is differently organized for sexual pheromones and plant odours, and possibly also for non-sexual pheromones. These aspects are best studied in different species: the honeybee Apis mellifera, the ant Camponotus rufipes (in collaboration with Bert Hölldobler, University of Würzburg), the moth Heliothis virescens (in collaboration with Hanna Mustaparta and Hanne Skiri, University of Trondheim, Norway) and the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster (as the leader of an independent research group, http://www.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/galizia/).
2) Behavioural studies: in order to understand odour representation in the brain it is necessary to investigate the capacity of the intact organism to discriminate and learn odours, i.e. it is necessary to measure the perceptual olfactory space. I do these experiments with free-flying bees in collaboration with Matthias Laska, University of Munich. Here, bees are simulataneously presented with up to 48 odours from which to choose the learned one, and their errors are evaluated in terms of odour similarity (Meggie Amui and Tobias Kaller). The same odour sets are used in calcium imaging experiments (Angelika Rappert, Christian Markl, James Follet).
3) Anatomical organization of the AL. For the honeybee, we created a spatial activity map as a superposition of a functional map (Silke Sachse) with a morphological atlas (Sabrina McIlwrath), http://www.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/honeybeeALatlas. With Astrid Klawitter I use anatomical tracing techniques and confocal reconstructions in order to understand the cellular connectivity patterns at the level of identified glomeruli.

Methods used:
Optical imaging in intact animal tissues, confocal microscopy, computer-based three-dimensional reconstructions, anatomical tracing, behavioural experiments.

Recently completed Diploma Theses which I supervised:
Arno Schlick. "Pharmakologie und optical recording am Antennallobus der Honigbiene (Apis mellifera)". 2000.
Angelika Rappert. "Repräsentation von Duftkonzentrationen und Duftmischungen im Antennallobus der Honigbiene, Apis mellifera L." 1998.
Silke Sachse. "Duftkartierung des Antannallobus der Honigbiene Apis mellifera" 1998.
Sabrina McIlwrath. "Der Antennallobus der Honigbiene, Apis mellifera, als digitaler dreidimensionaler Standardatlas" 1996.

Current cooperations and/or supervisions within the institute:
Marcel Weidert, Christian Markl, James Follet, Paul Szyska, Bernd Kimmerle, Robert Brandt, Astrid Klawitter.

Current cooperations outside the institute:
Bert Hölldobler, University of Würzburg
Matthias Laska, University of Munich
Hanna Mustaparta, Bente Berg, Hanne Skiri, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
Martin Stetter, Technical University Berlin

References:

[1] CG Galizia, A Küttner, J Joerges, R Menzel (2000). Odour representation in honeybee olfactory glomeruli shows slow temporal dynamics: an optical recording study using a voltage sensitive dye.
Journal of Insect Physiology, 46:877-886.

[2] Silke Sachse, Angelika Rappert, C.Giovanni Galizia (1999). The spatial representation of chemical structures in the antennal lobe of honeybees: steps towards the olfactory code.
European Journal of Neuroscience, 11:3970-3982.

[3] C.Giovanni Galizia, Randolf Menzel, Bert Hölldobler (1999). Optical imaging of odour-evoked glomerular activity patterns in the antennal lobes of the ant Camponotus rufipes.
Naturwissenschaften, 86:533-537.

[4] M. Laska, C.G. Galizia, M. Giurfa, R. Menzel (1999). Olfactory discrimination ability and odor structure-activity relationships in honeybees.
Chemical Senses, 24(4):429-38 .

[5] C. Giovanni Galizia, Silke Sachse, Angelika Rappert & Randolf Menzel (1999). The glomerular code for odor representation is species specific in the honeybee Apis mellifera.
Nature Neurosci. 2:473-478.

[6] Galizia CG, McIlwrath SL, Menzel R (1999). A digital three-dimensional atlas of the honeybee antennal lobe based on optical sections acquired using confocal microscopy.
Cell Tissue Res. 295:383-394.