sense of smell

By looking into the brains of locusts, researchers in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis have determined how one smell can affect another, and how a locust can recognize a smell even though its brain activity looks different depending on the context.

A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis recently completed a study offering profound implications for how sensory information may be encoded in the brain.

“I smell a rat!” Researchers have found that the sense of smelling in mice is affected by a biological clock devoted entirely to olfaction — smelling stuff, like sleeping and waking, is on a daily cycle.Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered a large biological clock in the smelling center of mice brains and have revealed that the sense of smell for mice is stronger at night, peaking in evening hours and waning during day light hours. A team led by Erik Herzog, Ph.D., Washington University associate professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, discovered the clock in the olfactory bulb, the brain center that aids the mouse in detecting odors. More…