How smell works - Olfactory system

How do our brains pick up smells from the air? This video will go into the olfactory system, which detects chemicals in the air and converts them into smells.

Further reading:

"Fundamental Neuroscience", Chapter 23

"The Olfactory System" by Kensaku Mori

John M.Bekkers, Norimitsu Suzuki (2013) Neurons and circuits for odor processing in the piriform cortex
Trends in Neuroscience 36, 429-438

Robin M. Blazing, Kevin M. Franks (2020) Odor coding in piriform cortex: mechanistic insights into distributed coding
Current Opinion in Neurobiology 64, 96-102

[FingerTheLittle]

Hi! This video is awesome. I recommended it to my sister in law, she's a doctor, and she is showing it to her students. I hope you will come back and create more content! Good stuff!

[tasneemhassan]

This video was very simple & informative. Thank you so much, sir !😊

[AkiraDesmondes]

The way our neurons are connected always takes me on a mindblowing trip. To think we have so many inhibitory and interconnection neurons that serve as a buffer to make our responses more adaptive and complex ALWAYS brings a smile to my face like "Phew! There's still SO MUCH to learn"


Thank you for this video! Definitely subscribing. :) Good day to ya!

[TranshumanistBCI]

What you explained is the 'shape hypothesis' but you missed the 'vibration hypothesis '
It explains why chemicals with different shapes smell similar using Quantum tunneling.

[thomascavanagh]

Can you provide examples of molecular shapes/ types of smells? You said there are about 500 categories of smells for humans, so, for example, is "sour" one of those categories or a combination of those categories? Is there one basic molecular shape that elicits the smell "sour"?