In the geeky, fiercely competitive world of neurobiology, the identification of olfactory receptors was huge news.
"The Perfume Lover" covers everything from the history of perfume to contemporary olfactory fashions.
Perhaps, in a world of olfactory fakery, this is one tip for the wise.
In 1986 Kevin Kinsella, a venture capitalist, spotted a neuroscience paper about the olfactory cortex of a rat's brain.
Murphy actually took to the city surprisingly well, what with its olfactory riches and legions of overfed, sluggish rats.
Scientists suggest that olfactory signals might someday form the basis of new treatments for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders.
It also complements laboratory findings that trout olfactory systems can detect geomagnetic fields.
Within the olfactory bulb, each smell produced a different pattern of electrical activity.
That's what's spent on olfactory ingredients in Tide detergent, Palmolive soap, Chanel No. 5 and a host of other aromatic products.
The parents-to-be were thus exposed to visual, auditory, tactile and (from the blanket) olfactory stimuli associated with having a baby around.
There are about 5 million neurons in the olfactory epithelium, or about 5, 000 neurons for each of the 1, 000 different receptor types.
Decreased Fos in the amygdala, the brain's emotional processing center, suggests the olfactory signals suppressed amygdala activation, and possibly fear, researchers said.
Another mystery the original discovery had left unsolved was this: How can humans, with only 350 olfactory receptors, distinguish 10, 000 or more odorants?
Buck, an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), has spent 14 years trying to unravel the mysteries of the olfactory system.
Working with rats, Axel and Buck pinpointed 1, 000 types of "olfactory receptors" located in the back of the nose, on a spot called the olfactory epithelium.
Burr thinks he's found the man who has solved the mystery: Luca Turin , an eccentric scientist whose nose has the olfactory equivalent of perfect pitch.
Poo-Pourri is just the proverbial tip of their olfactory iceberg.
With time, neuroscience research uncovered two parts of the brain that evidence neurogenesis: the hippocampus, associated with memory formation, and the olfactory bulb, associated with the sense of smell.
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After cracking the code, Buck set out to trace the way connections extend from the olfactory bulb into the olfactory cortex, the part of the brain that processes odor signals.
In the study, funded by the Medical Research Council and published in the neurology journal Brain, the dogs had olfactory ensheathing cells from the lining of their nose removed.
While many animals communicate using their sense of smell, it has long been assumed that humans lack this ability because we do not have the olfactory sensitivity of dogs for example.
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" Perfumes are "aesthetically influential works of olfactory art.
Using an ingenious genetic tracing technique, in 2001 two members of Buck's research team, Zhihua Zou and Lisa Horowitz , did something that had seemed impossible: They discovered a map in the olfactory cortex.
But in a nod to ingenious evolutionary survival, overcooking also releases an unpleasant-smelling sulphur compound from the sprout's core, an olfactory offense that is the reason many people thumb their noses at this vegetable.
Analysis of the brains of the euthanized rats revealed decreased levels of Fos, a protein marker of neuronal activity, in the amygdala region of the brain while the olfactory signals appeared to block fear responses.
Each neuron has a long fiber, or axon, that stretches upward through a tiny opening in the bone above it and into the olfactory bulb, a plum-size mass in the front of the brain, behind the forehead.
Claiming to be the "first major museum exhibition to recognize scent as a major medium of artistic creation, " the show strips perfume of its extensive packaging and advertising and presents it as an "olfactory art" in a purpose-built white-cube gallery.
"When we chew and swallow, volatile molecules from the food go through the rear of the nasal cavity to the olfactory receptors in the roof of the nose, " says Richard Doty, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Smell and Taste Center.
He doesn't credit himself with any particular olfactory gift such as the one possessed by Grenouille, the homicidal perfumer in the novel "Perfume, " who is blessed, or perhaps cursed, with the planet's most discerning nostrils. (If you haven't, it's a stunning read.) "I have an educated nose, " he explained.
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The other surprise, a small presentation also at MILK Studios, was a label called Calla characterized by bold prints in geometric in neon yellow and purple. (It also smelled like a rose-filled winter garden inside, courtesy olfactory branding company 12.29.) The silk-screened slim-fit pants, cute above-the-knee dresses, and thick PVC heels worked well together with tiny T-shirt-cut tops and softly angled jackets.
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