Smell: The unappreciated human sense

摘要

This report presents the role of the sense of smell in human life and the influence of scented compound structures on the smell sensation. The structure of the human sense of smell and the molecular mechanism underlying odor perception are also described. The molecular mechanisms by which olfactory stimuli are detected and transducer into electrical signals were long unclear. Humans and other mammals are able to perceive about a thousand different volatile chemicals present in the external environment as distinct odors, but how the olfactory system detects such structurally diverse chemicals and how the nervous system translates the chemical structures into different odor perceptions were still unknown.