According to a new study, each nostril of a human works independently by smelling the surrounding environment separately.
This research further explains how the brain processes information from the senses.
The research, published last week in the journal Current Biology, shows that the left and right nostrils smell independently, and the brain processes the sensory signals at different time intervals to get a complete picture of the surroundings.
Scientists, including those at the University of Pennsylvania, say that ‘despite significant research on the response to odors in the olfactory system, little is known about how information from the two nostrils is integrated and the human system. How does Shama differentiate between them?’
In this study, scientists examined 10 epilepsy patients whose The mind Electrodes were placed in
Then the researchers three different Fragrances I put one in one of their nostrils and then in both together.
Participants were then asked to identify the odor on each trial and also indicate which nostril they used for identification.
During this process, researchers used electrodes to collect data on brain activity.
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The scientists focused specifically on activity in the brain’s piriform cortex (PC), which is known to be the area where the sense of smell is controlled and interpreted.
The researchers found that when the same odor was put into both nostrils, brain activity was similar, but not identical.
Sniffing through both nostrils at the same time also produced two distinct bursts of activity in the brain that were a few milliseconds apart, indicating that the nostrils always work somewhat differently.
‘Olfactory information from both nostrils is temporally separated in the human piriform cortex,’ the researchers write.
According to the scientists, this recent research has important implications for understanding how the brain works to process odors.
This suggests that the brain separates the odor information from each nostril by temporally separating the signals.
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2024-09-30 16:24:28
