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The olfactory system, or sense of smell, is the sensory system used for olfaction (i.e., smelling). Olfaction is one of the special senses directly associated with specific organs. Most mammals and reptiles have a main olfactory system and an accessory olfactory system. The main olfactory system detects airborne substances, while the accessory ...
In the accessory olfactory system, stimuli are detected by the vomeronasal organ, located in the vomer, between the nose and the mouth. Snakes use it to smell prey, sticking their tongue out and touching it to the organ. Some mammals make a facial expression called flehmen to direct stimuli to this organ. The sensory receptors of the accessory ...
As a neural circuit, the olfactory bulb has one source of sensory input (axons from olfactory receptor neurons of the olfactory epithelium), and one output (mitral cell axons). As a result, it is generally assumed that it functions as a filter , as opposed to an associative circuit that has many inputs and many outputs.
In the olfactory bulb, the ORNs synapse with termination in the glomeruli. [6] Each glomerulus receives input from olfactory receptor neurons expressing only one type of olfactory receptor. The glomerular activation patterns within the olfactory bulb are thought to represent the quality of the odor being detected.
The olfactory epithelium is a specialized epithelial tissue inside the nasal cavity that is involved in smell. In humans, it measures 5 cm 2 (0.78 sq in) [1] and lies on the roof of the nasal cavity about 7 cm (2.8 in) above and behind the nostrils. [2] The olfactory epithelium is the part of the olfactory system directly responsible for ...
This escape from inhibition can be sped up by increasing the stimulating odorant concentration, and thus mitral cell firing phase acts as one possible way the olfactory system encodes concentration. The role of the mitral cell lateral dendrite and granule cell circuit is currently a bit more uncertain.
The olfactory tract (olfactory peduncle or olfactory stalk) is a bilateral bundle of afferent nerve fibers from the mitral and tufted cells of the olfactory bulb that connects to several target regions in the brain, including the piriform cortex, amygdala, and entorhinal cortex.
The specialized olfactory receptor neurons of the olfactory nerve are located in the olfactory mucosa of the upper parts of the nasal cavity.The olfactory nerves consist of a collection of many sensory nerve fibers that extend from the olfactory epithelium to the olfactory bulb, passing through the many openings of the cribriform plate, a sieve-like structure of the ethmoid bone.