Table of Contents
What happens during olfaction?
Olfaction is the sensation of smell that results from the detection of odorous substances aerosolized in the environment. Along with vision, taste, hearing, and balance, olfaction is a special sense. Humans are able to detect odors through the components of the olfactory system.
What is the process of the olfactory system?
The system consists of the nose and the nasal cavities, which in their upper parts support the olfactory mucous membrane for the perception of smell and in their lower parts act as respiratory passages. The olfactory bulb of the brain processes information from the olfactory receptors lining the nose.
What does the olfactory system do?
The olfactory system is responsible for our sense of smell. This sense, also known as olfaction, is one of our five main senses and involves the detection and identification of molecules in the air. Once detected by sensory organs, nerve signals are sent to the brain where the signals are processed.
What is olfaction and how does it work?
The sense of smell, called olfaction, involves the detection and perception of chemicals floating in the air. Chemical molecules enter the nose and dissolve in mucous within a membrane called the olfactory epithelium. In humans, the olfactory epithelium is located about 7 cm up and into the nose from the nostrils.
When does olfaction occur?
Olfaction is among the most preserved senses throughout species and plays a vital role in daily life, being fundamental for feeding, reproductive and social behavior. Several studies described that in mammals, including humans, the sense of smell is developed during the first weeks of fetal life [9, 22, 91, 92].
What are olfactory receptors?
Definition. Olfactory receptors are able to detect air-borne odour molecules that enter the nasal cavity and bind to olfactory receptors. The activation of olfactory receptors results in olfactory receptor neurons sending an impulse to the brain’s olfactory system.
What part of the brain processes olfactory information?
Olfactory Cortex
The Olfactory Cortex is the portion of the cerebral cortex concerned with the sense of smell. It is part of the Cerebrum. It is a structurally distinct cortical region on the ventral surface of the forebrain, composed of several areas. It includes the piriform lobe and the hippocampal formation.
What is the main function of the olfactory bulb?
The olfactory bulb is the first processing station in the central olfactory pathway. It receives olfactory nerve input from the sensory epithelium in the nose and sends mitral/tufted cell axonal output to the olfactory cortex. One critical determinant of olfactory bulb function is the nose-to-bulb projection.
What are the major olfactory areas and functions?
The olfactory system can be divided into two main components: (1) the main olfactory system which consists of the main olfactory epithlium in the nasal cavity where transduction of volatile odors occurs, and the main olfactory bulb and its connections with other parts of the brain; and (2) the accessory olfactory …
How does olfaction work with the brain?
Odors in the Brain Once an odor molecule binds to a receptor, it initiates an electrical signal that travels from the sensory neurons to the olfactory bulb, a structure at the base of the forebrain that relays the signal to other brain areas for additional processing.