Neuroscience

Deciphering the olfactory receptor code

In animals, numerous behaviors are governed by the olfactory perception of their surrounding world. Whether originating in the nose of a mammal or the antennas of an insect, perception results from the combined activation ...

Neuroscience

Wiring for smell sets up early, then persists

To accommodate a lifetime of scents and aromas, mammals have hundreds of genes that each produce a different odorant receptor. The complex and diverse olfactory system they build remains adaptable, but a new study in the ...

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 ...

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