Neural Mapping Paints Haphazard Picture Of Odor Receptors

Friday, February 13, 2009 - 18:35 in Biology & Nature

Despite the striking aromatic differences between coffee, peppermint, and pine, a new mapping of the nose's neural circuitry suggests a haphazard patchwork where the receptors for such disparate scents are as likely as not to be neighbors. Inexplicably, this seemingly random arrangement is faithfully preserved across individuals and even species, with cells that process the same scent located in precisely the same location on the olfactory bulb, the brain's first processing station for odors.

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