Neuroscience

Researchers identify critical link in mammalian odor detection

Researchers at the Monell Center and collaborators have identified a protein that is critical to the ability of mammals to smell. Mice engineered to be lacking the Ggamma13 protein in their olfactory receptors were functionally ...

Medical research

Do cells in the blood, heart and lungs smell the food we eat?

In a discovery suggesting that odors may have a far more important role in life than previously believed, scientists have found that heart, blood, lung and other cells in the body have the same receptors for sensing odors ...

Neuroscience

Mice have distinct subsystem to handle smell associated with fear

A new study finds that mice have a distinct neural subsystem that links the nose to the brain and is associated with instinctually important smells such as those emitted by predators. That insight, published online this week ...

Genetics

Gene switch for odorant receptors

The olfactory sensory neurons in the nasal mucosa perceive the myriad smells in the air with the aid of odorant receptors. Each sensory neuron chooses one and only one receptor gene for expression. The probability that a ...

Medical research

New perspectives on sensory mechanisms

The latest Perspectives in General Physiology series examines the mechanisms of visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile processes that inform us about the environment. The series appears in the September 2011 issue of the Journal ...

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