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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Real-time In Vitro Monitoring of Odorant Receptor Activation by an Odorant in the Vapor Phase
Published on: April 23, 2019
Mechanisms of scent-tracking in humans
Jess Porter1, Brent Craven, Rehan M Khan
1299 Life Science Addition, MC 3200, Program in Biophysics, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. jessiep@berkeley.edu
Abstract:
Whether mammalian scent-tracking is aided by inter-nostril comparisons is unknown. We assessed this in humans and found that (i) humans can scent-track, (ii) they improve with practice, (iii) the human nostrils sample spatially distinct regions separated by approximately 3.5 cm and, critically, (iv) scent-tracking is aided by inter-nostril comparisons. These findings reveal fundamental mechanisms of scent-tracking and suggest that the poor reputation of human olfaction may reflect, in part, behavioral demands rather than ultimate abilities.
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