The Vomeronasal Organ

Stowers, Lisa; Spehr, Marc

doi:10.1002/9781118971758.ch51

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Several of these and other (putative) semiochemicals are metabolic by-products of common biochemical pathways. For example, 2-heptanone and α/β-farnesene also direct social behavior in several evolutionarily diverse species, including insects ( Stowers and Spehr 2014 ). To achieve species-specific bioactivity, these molecules are likely to function as components of chemical blends.…”

Section: Vomeronasal Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, the AOB and MOB also show notable differences with respect to each of these aspects, and these differences may have important functional implications. Thus, one should be cautious about extrapolation of organizational and physiological principles from the main to the accessory bulb ( Dulac and Wagner 2006 ; Stowers and Spehr 2014 ). Several studies have examined the anatomy of the AOB at the cellular level ( Mori 1987 ; Takami and Graziadei 1991 ; Takami et al 1992 ; Larriva-Sahd 2008 ).…”

Section: Aob—structure and Functional Circuitrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although presently the jury is still out with respect to the exact functional consequences of feedback projections, it seems safe to conclude that afferent centrifugal modulation of AOB processing plays an important physiological role in AOS function ( Stowers and Spehr 2014 ).…”

Section: Aob Centrifugal Inputsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Signal Detection and Coding in the Accessory Olfactory System

et al. 2018

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In many mammalian species, the accessory olfactory system plays a central role in guiding behavioral and physiological responses to social and reproductive interactions. Because of its relatively compact structure and its direct access to amygdalar and hypothalamic nuclei, the accessory olfactory pathway provides an ideal system to study sensory control of complex mammalian behavior. During the last several years, many studies employing molecular, behavioral, and physiological approaches have significantly expanded and enhanced our understanding of this system. The purpose of the current review is to integrate older and newer studies to present an updated and comprehensive picture of vomeronasal signaling and coding with an emphasis on early accessory olfactory system processing stages. These include vomeronasal sensory neurons in the vomeronasal organ, and the circuitry of the accessory olfactory bulb. Because the overwhelming majority of studies on accessory olfactory system function employ rodents, this review is largely focused on this phylogenetic order, and on mice in particular. Taken together, the emerging view from both older literature and more recent studies is that the molecular, cellular, and circuit properties of chemosensory signaling along the accessory olfactory pathway are in many ways unique. Yet, it has also become evident that, like the main olfactory system, the accessory olfactory system also has the capacity for adaptive learning, experience, and state-dependent plasticity. In addition to describing what is currently known about accessory olfactory system function and physiology, we highlight what we believe are important gaps in our knowledge, which thus define exciting directions for future investigation.

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Section: Vomeronasal Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aob—structure and Functional Circuitrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Signal Detection and Coding in the Accessory Olfactory System

et al. 2018

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“…But Broca had illustrious contemporaries who shared similar ideas [e.g., Darwin who affirmed that, to Man, "the sense of smell is of extremely slight service, if any" (Darwin, 1871(Darwin, /1992], and numerous were the followers who forced this line of reasoning in propagating an explicit conceptual glide from Broca's initial structural observations into unfounded functional inferences (e.g., Freud, 1930Freud, /1962. This "microsmaty fallacy" (Lundström and Olsson, 2010) long pervaded scientific psychology for a variety of reasons (Sela and Sobel, 2010;McGann, 2017), including the consideration that the human vomeronasal organ is vestigial (Doty, 2001;Stowers and Spehr, 2015), the yet unsuccessful search for human pheromones (Doty, 2010;Wyatt, 2015Wyatt, , 2017, and the fact that humans had no obvious scent glands (Stoddart, 1990;Schaal and Porter, 1991). Recently, however, a growing amount of studies in biology, psychology, and anthropology stressed the overlooked role of olfaction in human behavior, and in particular in social cognition (e.g., Stoddart, 1990;Schaal and Porter, 1991;Classen et al, 2002;Stevenson, 2010;Pause, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olfaction in the Multisensory Processing of Faces: A Narrative Review of the Influence of Human Body Odors

et al. 2021

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A recent body of research has emerged regarding the interactions between olfaction and other sensory channels to process social information. The current review examines the influence of body odors on face perception, a core component of human social cognition. First, we review studies reporting how body odors interact with the perception of invariant facial information (i.e., identity, sex, attractiveness, trustworthiness, and dominance). Although we mainly focus on the influence of body odors based on axillary odor, we also review findings about specific steroids present in axillary sweat (i.e., androstenone, androstenol, androstadienone, and estratetraenol). We next survey the literature showing body odor influences on the perception of transient face properties, notably in discussing the role of body odors in facilitating or hindering the perception of emotional facial expression, in relation to competing frameworks of emotions. Finally, we discuss the developmental origins of these olfaction-to-vision influences, as an emerging literature indicates that odor cues strongly influence face perception in infants. Body odors with a high social relevance such as the odor emanating from the mother have a widespread influence on various aspects of face perception in infancy, including categorization of faces among other objects, face scanning behavior, or facial expression perception. We conclude by suggesting that the weight of olfaction might be especially strong in infancy, shaping social perception, especially in slow-maturing senses such as vision, and that this early tutoring function of olfaction spans all developmental stages to disambiguate a complex social environment by conveying key information for social interactions until adulthood.

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“…Not surprisingly, early receptors successfully subjected to initial structure determinations or even X-ray crystallography were the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor from the electrical organ of the electric ray Torpedo marmorata [ 77 ] and bovine rhodopsin that could be purified from bovine retinas [ 78 ], respectively. Unfortunately, chemosensory tissues, such as main olfactory epithelia, epithelia of vomeronasal organs or gustatory papillae, represent perhaps the worst source for such purification attempts, because of their small sizes, mixed cell and receptor populations interspersed with numerous non-sensory cells and with high, lifelong turnover [ 79 , 80 , 81 ].…”

Section: Different Approaches To Investigate Tas2rsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structure-Function Analyses of Human Bitter Taste Receptors—Where Do We Stand?

Behrens

Ziegler

2020

Molecules

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The finding that bitter taste receptors are expressed in numerous tissues outside the oral cavity and fulfill important roles in metabolic regulation, innate immunity and respiratory control, have made these receptors important targets for drug discovery. Efficient drug discovery depends heavily on detailed knowledge on structure-function-relationships of the target receptors. Unfortunately, experimental structures of bitter taste receptors are still lacking, and hence, the field relies mostly on structures obtained by molecular modeling combined with functional experiments and point mutageneses. The present article summarizes the current knowledge on the structure–function relationships of human bitter taste receptors. Although these receptors are difficult to express in heterologous systems and their homology with other G protein-coupled receptors is very low, detailed information are available at least for some of these receptors.

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The Vomeronasal Organ

Cited by 5 publications

References 273 publications

Signal Detection and Coding in the Accessory Olfactory System

Signal Detection and Coding in the Accessory Olfactory System

Olfaction in the Multisensory Processing of Faces: A Narrative Review of the Influence of Human Body Odors

Structure-Function Analyses of Human Bitter Taste Receptors—Where Do We Stand?

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