New research makes advances in understanding how smells are perceived and represented in the brain. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2019, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
Olfactory cues provide essential information for finding food, navigation, predator avoidance, and social interactions, among other functions. Yet our understanding of how the brain perceives and processes smells lags behind our understanding of the neural basis of other senses, such as vision.
Today's new findings show that:
"The sense of smell is one of the last mysteries in sensory neuroscience," said Alexander Fleischmann, PhD, a professor at Brown University who studies sensory perception and behavior. "This research advances our understanding of how the brain perceives, represents and navigates a complex olfactory environment."
This research was supported by national funding agencies including the National Institutes of Health and private funding organizations.
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