Researchers Reveal an Added Layer of Nuance in Our Sense of Smell
hubie writes:
The delicate fragrance of jasmine is a delight to the senses. The sweet scent is popular in teas, perfumes and potpourri. But take a whiff of the concentrated essential oil, and the pleasant aroma becomes almost cloying. Indeed, part of the flower's smell comes from the compound skatole, a prominent component of fecal odor.
Our sense of smell is clearly a complex process; it involves hundreds of different odorant receptors working in concert. The more an odor stimulates a particular neuron, the more electrical signals that neuron sends to the brain. But researchers at UC Santa Barbara discovered that these neurons actually fall silent when an odor rises above a certain threshold. Remarkably, this was integral to how the brain recognized each smell. "It's a feature; it's not a bug," said Matthieu Louis, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.
The paradoxical finding, published in Science Advances, shakes up our understanding of olfaction. "The same odor can be represented by very different patterns of active olfactory sensory neurons at different concentrations," Louis said. "This might explain why some odors can be perceived as very different to us at low, medium and very high concentrations. Consider for instance the smell of a ripe banana from a distance (sweet and fruity) versus up-close (overpowering and artificial)."
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