Animal scents
A new Harvard study of how mice respond to scent cues from potential mates, competitors, and nearby predators has laid a foundation for further investigations that may lead to a greater understanding of social recognition in the animal brain, with implications for a host of human disorders ranging from autism to post-traumatic stress disorder. While it has long been known that many animals rely on a secondary olfactory organ, known as the vomeronasal organ, to detect certain scents, new research, directed by Higgins Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Catherine Dulac, identifies for the first time exactly how such scent cues are detected and interpreted. In the Sept. 21 online version of the journal Nature, Dulac’s group reports identifying 88 proteins that act as receptor molecules, together with the range of specific signals each protein is responding to. Scents may indicate a potential mate or the presence of a predator. Depending on...