Our sense of smell is based on a remarkable chemical-detection system that possesses high sensitivity, broad discriminability and plastic, yet stable, function. Understanding how olfactory stimuli translate into perception is a problem of daunting complexity. How do odour-coding events in single cells correlate with emergent properties from the ensemble, and with behaviour? For comprehensive descriptions of neural function, analysis must extend from examination of how elemental principles relate to the function of the whole. The tiger salamander has long been used as an experimental model in studies of olfaction, enabling general questions about olfactory function to be approached.