The knowledge of the olfactory system is quite recent, even though humans have wondered about it for centuries.
Each time we smell something, it involves teamwork between our nose and brain. There are thousands of tiny molecules floating in the air around us.
When those tiny molecules get into our nostrils, olfactory neurons in them make sense of them and send a message to the olfactory bulb in the brain, which distributes it to other regions of the brain.
So why do we have two nostrils? The answer is to track smells, just as dogs do, but their sense of smell is much more sensitive.
Each nostril allows our brain to detect small differences in the number of molecules that reach each one so that we can know from where it comes.
We love to eat, don't we? Well, that wouldn't be possible without the sense of smell, have you noticed that you can't taste anything when your nose is blocked?
Earlier, we mentioned the neurons inside our nostrils, we'll talk more about them.
Olfactory neurons talk to each other using electrical impulses, using their long cable-like connections to send those messages to the olfactory bulb, that distributes them to other parts of the brain.
These parts of the brain use the messages to do things like storing memories or provoking emotions, that is what happens when spontaneously old memories come back to us.
It doesn't matter how much we age; smells can take us as far back as to our childhood.
The olfactory system is similar and important to almost all animals (keep in mind, we are animals too) It helps them to find food, to recognize their family, and to avoid danger.
However, we perceive smells as flat, we smell individual things such as coffee or perfume, but we can't identify each component without proper training.
Some professionals can, with a lot of practice, identify individual components of smell, such as wine tasters or perfume makers. This is our olfactory system.
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