Neuroendocrinology briefings 11: pheromones and reproduction

The information humans receive from their nose is rarely of vital significance and although perfumers and masters of wine have developed a large vocabulary of descriptors, most of us categorize odours into pleasant and unpleasant. Not surprisingly therefore, most of our olfactory receptor genes are nonfunctional pseudogenes. Rodents, on the other hand, not only have a vast repertoire of olfactory genes (1000-1500) but also possess two additional sets of receptors in the vomeronasal organ that is specialized for pheromone reception.