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Olfactory Receptors: Location and Structure

Olfactory Receptors: Location and Structure

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...

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...

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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Tactile senses encompass touch, temperature, and pain, each mediated by specific receptors. Touch receptors detect mechanical energy or pressure against the skin. Sensory fibers from these receptors enter the spinal cord and relay information to the brain stem. Here, most fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. The touch information then moves to the thalamus, which projects a map of the body's surface onto the somatosensory areas of the parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Live-cell Measurement of Odorant Receptor Activation Using a Real-time cAMP Assay

Live-cell Measurement of Odorant Receptor Activation Using a Real-time cAMP Assay

Published on: October 2, 2017

Receptor-Mimetic Stereo Olfaction for Simultaneous Odor Recognition and Spatial Localization.

Liyuan Zhang¹, Yujie Wu¹, Zhuocheng Gong²

¹Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Biomaterials, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.

Advanced Materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

|February 26, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This study introduces AROMA, an artificial olfaction system using nanoparticle sensors to simultaneously identify chemical mixtures and pinpoint 3D source locations from odor plume dynamics. This breakthrough enables robots to navigate and monitor environments using smell.

Keywords:

chemiresistive gas sensing electronic nose gold nanoparticles machine learning odor mixture recognition odor source localization

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Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Live-cell Measurement of Odorant Receptor Activation Using a Real-time cAMP Assay

Live-cell Measurement of Odorant Receptor Activation Using a Real-time cAMP Assay

Published on: October 2, 2017

Real-time In Vitro Monitoring of Odorant Receptor Activation by an Odorant in the Vapor Phase

Real-time In Vitro Monitoring of Odorant Receptor Activation by an Odorant in the Vapor Phase

Published on: April 23, 2019

Multi-unit Recording Methods to Characterize Neural Activity in the Locust Schistocerca Americana Olfactory Circuits

Multi-unit Recording Methods to Characterize Neural Activity in the Locust Schistocerca Americana Olfactory Circuits

Published on: January 25, 2013

Area of Science:

Chemosenory science
Robotics
Materials science

Background:

Animal olfaction integrates chemical identity with spatial information for navigation.
Current artificial olfaction systems typically address chemical identification and localization separately.
Odor plumes are complex chemophysical fields influenced by molecular properties and transport phenomena.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a stereo olfaction strategy, AROMA (Artificial Receptor-Olfaction Mimetic Array), for concurrent decoding of chemical composition and 3D source localization.
To emulate biological olfactory receptor mechanisms using engineered nanomaterials.
To advance artificial olfaction capabilities towards spatial intelligence for autonomous systems.

Main Methods:

AROMA utilizes mixed-ligand gold nanoparticles with phase-separated monolayers to mimic the promiscuous selectivity of olfactory GPCRs.
A spatially separated, antenna-like sensor array captures plume dynamics, converting concentration field variations into geometric information.
A multi-task Transformer model is trained to decode mixture composition and 3D source location from sensor kinetic patterns.

Main Results:

The 30-channel AROMA system achieved 86.7% accuracy in identifying six-odorant mixtures.
A 3D localization error of 2.84 ± 0.87 cm was obtained in controlled trials.
Successful room-scale source tracking was demonstrated by a mobile robot under natural airflow conditions.

Conclusions:

AROMA integrates chemical sensing with spatial localization, moving beyond static molecular discrimination.
The system translates plume dynamics into a unified latent representation for enhanced environmental perception.
This approach offers a novel framework for advanced environmental monitoring and autonomous navigation systems.