How good it is to be able to smell a rose, the perfume of a loved one, or the wonderful smell of your mother's food. It is through the sense of smell that this becomes possible. Let's get to know a little more about this very valuable meaning?
The main organ of the sense of smell is the nose. The perception of odors occurs thanks to a region located in the upper part of the nasal cavities called the olfactory epithelium. It is in this epithelium that we find specialized sensory cells called chemoreceptors. They are characterized by having extensions that are immersed in mucus, called olfactory cilia.
Odor molecules dispersed in the air are able to stimulate these cilia. They will generate a nerve impulse that will reach the olfactory bulb (area of the brain that is responsible for receiving the message and sending it to other regions of the brain where the message will be interpreted). It is believed that man is able to distinguish around 10,000 different scents.
A very interesting feature of this sense is the fact that it is closely related to taste. You may have noticed that when you eat something when you have a cold, the taste is very difficult to distinguish. This is due to the fact that flavor is a mixture of tastes, smells and textures. When we take food, various odors are being released and, when we chew, we make more smells spread. When we have the flu, the large amount of mucus prevents us from smelling the odor and we cannot capture the taste.
When we have a cold, we have difficulty detecting the taste of food
Did you know that there are people who can smell no smell? The total loss of this sense is called anosmia. It is believed that at least 1% of the population is affected. Some diseases are related to this loss of ability to perceive odors, among them is Parkinson's disease. Pollution also seems to influence the loss of this sense.
The ability to perceive odors is critical to the survival of animals! Some males can perceive the female's characteristic odor when she is ready to breed. In addition, they may notice that certain food is bad or that something is burning. Not to mention the ability to smell a predator or prey.
This sense is as important to us humans as it is to other animals. It is believed that babies are already able to recognize their mother's scent in the first week of life. Furthermore, we are able to instantly associate a smell with some situation we have already been through. Who has never smelled a scent and remembered a loved one?
by Vanessa dos Santos
Graduated in Biology
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