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Olfaction

Olfaction

The sense of smell is achieved through the activities of the olfactory system. It starts when an airborne odorant enters the nasal cavity and reaches olfactory epithelium (OE). The OE is protected by a thin layer of mucus, which also serves the purpose of dissolving more complex compounds into simpler chemical odorants. The size of the OE and the density of sensory neurons varies among species; in humans, the OE is only about 9-10 cm2.
The olfactory receptors are embedded in the cilia of the...

Physiology of Smell and Olfactory Pathway

Physiology of Smell and Olfactory Pathway

Humans detect odors with the help of specialized cells located in the upper part of the nasal cavity, called olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs). ORNs possess hair-like structures called cilia, which are receptive to sensations from the inhaled air. When an odorant molecule binds to a specific receptor on the cell of the cilia, it leads to a series of events that ultimately cause the ORN to send electrical signals to the olfactory bulb in the brain through the olfactory nerves.
The olfactory...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 31, 2025

Author Spotlight: Visualizing Olfactory Receptor Expression in Mosquitoes

Author Spotlight: Visualizing Olfactory Receptor Expression in Mosquitoes

Published on: November 17, 2023

Non-canonical odor coding in the mosquito.

Margaret Herre¹, Olivia V Goldman², Tzu-Chiao Lu³

¹Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA; Kavli Neural Systems Institute, New York, NY 10065, USA; Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program, New York, NY 10065, USA.

|August 19, 2022

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti detect humans using olfactory receptors. Surprisingly, many mosquito neurons co-express multiple receptors, creating a robust system that is hard to disrupt.

Keywords:

Aedes aegypti mosquito odor coding olfaction snRNA-seq

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Area of Science:

Entomology
Neuroscience
Molecular Biology

Background:

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transmit arboviruses like dengue.
Mosquitoes use ionotropic chemosensory receptors to detect human body odor and carbon dioxide.
Previous research suggested olfactory receptor redundancy in mosquitoes due to genetic mutations having minor effects on human attraction.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the organizational principle of the mosquito olfactory system.
To understand how Aedes aegypti mosquitoes detect humans.
To explore the reasons behind the robustness of mosquito olfaction.

Main Methods:

In vivo electrophysiology was used to study olfactory sensory neurons in Aedes aegypti.
Analysis of chemosensory receptor gene co-expression in individual neurons.

Main Results:

Contrary to the canonical view, Aedes aegypti olfactory sensory neurons co-express multiple chemosensory receptor genes.
This non-canonical co-expression is responsible for the broad ligand-sensitivity of mosquito olfactory neurons.
The redundancy in receptor co-expression enhances the robustness of the mosquito olfactory system.

Conclusions:

Aedes aegypti utilizes a unique olfactory system where neurons co-express multiple chemosensory receptors.
This co-expression mechanism contributes to the mosquito's effective detection of humans.
The findings may explain the difficulty in disrupting mosquito attraction to humans.