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Related Concept Videos

Olfaction01:25

Olfaction

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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...
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Physiology of Smell and Olfactory Pathway01:20

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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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The process of olfaction, also known as the sense of smell, is a sophisticated chemical response system. The specialized sensory neurons that facilitate this process, known as olfactory receptor neurons, are situated in an upper segment of the nasal cavity, known as the olfactory epithelium. Olfactory sensory neurons are bipolar, with their dendrites extending from the epithelium's apex into the mucus that lines the nasal cavity. Airborne molecules, when inhaled, traverse the olfactory...
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 15, 2026

Perforated Patch-clamp Recording of Mouse Olfactory Sensory Neurons in Intact Neuroepithelium: Functional Analysis of Neurons Expressing an Identified Odorant Receptor
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Perforated Patch-clamp Recording of Mouse Olfactory Sensory Neurons in Intact Neuroepithelium: Functional Analysis of Neurons Expressing an Identified Odorant Receptor

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When noncanonical olfaction is optimal.

Caitlin Lienkaemper1,2, Meg A Younger2,3,4,5, Gabriel Koch Ocker1,2

  • 1Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|October 7, 2025
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti use noncanonical olfaction, coexpressing multiple olfactory receptors (ORs) in one neuron. This strategy efficiently encodes complex odor signals in specific environments, unlike the canonical one-receptor-to-one-neuron model.

Keywords:
efficient codinginformation theoryolfaction

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Sensory Biology
  • Computational Biology

Background:

  • The canonical olfactory system model posits one olfactory receptor (OR) per olfactory sensory neuron (OSN).
  • Exceptions exist, such as in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, where OSNs coexpress multiple OR types.
  • The reasons for these differing olfactory system organizations remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate why some olfactory systems follow the canonical organization while others exhibit noncanonical features.
  • To explore the functional implications of olfactory receptor coexpression using an efficient coding framework.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical modeling based on the principles of efficient coding.
  • Analysis of olfactory receptor expression patterns in different species.
  • Simulations to compare encoding efficiency under various environmental conditions.

Main Results:

  • The canonical and noncanonical olfactory organizations are optimal for encoding odor signals in distinct environmental contexts.
  • Noncanonical olfaction provides benefits when odor sources emit correlated odorants and irrelevant odorants are present.
  • The study provides a theoretical explanation for observed receptor coexpression in certain species.

Conclusions:

  • Olfactory system organization is shaped by the need for efficient coding of odor information.
  • Noncanonical olfaction, involving OR coexpression, is an adaptive strategy for specific ecological niches.
  • This work offers a framework for understanding the diversity of early olfactory system structures.