In this entertaining book, a naturalist rescues the underappreciated sense of smell from obscurity and brings to light new evidence that Jacobson's Organ--two tiny pits inside the nostril--is the peromonal mechanism that triggers the areas of the brain affecting awareness, emotion, and sexual behavior.
Nothing is more memorable than a smell. So why do we persist in dismissing the nose as a blunt instrument? Smell is our most seductive and provocative sense, invading every domain of our lives. We can identify our relatives, detect the availability of a potential mate, sniff out danger, and distinguish between good and bad food just with our noses. In this surprising and delightful book, Lyall Watson rescues our most unappreciated sense from obscurity. He brings to light new evidence concerning Jacobson's Organ: an anatomical feature discovered high in the nose in 1811 and dismissed for centuries as a vestigial ghost. Yet recent research has shown Jacobson's Organ to be an incredibly influential pheromonal mechanism that feeds the area of the brain affecting our awareness, emotional states, and sexual behavior. Following the seven classes of smell devised by the pioneering botanist Carl Linnaeus in his Odores Medicamentorum, Watson examines the roles of smell and pheromones in humans, plants, and animals. He reveals the curious ways in which trees communicate their distress, the olfactory abilities of feral children, the bond we have with our offspring, the psychosexual effects of perfume, and the link between smell and memory formation. Jacobson's Organ unlocks the door to the strange world of this mysterious sense.
Intraspecific communication involves the activation of chemoreceptors and subsequent activation of different central areas that coordinate the responses of the entire organism—ranging from behavioral modification to modulation of hormones release. Animals emit intraspecific chemical signals, often referred to as pheromones, to advertise their presence to members of the same species and to regulate interactions aimed at establishing and regulating social and reproductive bonds. In the last two decades, scientists have developed a greater understanding of the neural processing of these chemical signals. Neurobiology of Chemical Communication explores the role of the chemical senses in mediating intraspecific communication. Providing an up-to-date outline of the most recent advances in the field, it presents data from laboratory and wild species, ranging from invertebrates to vertebrates, from insects to humans. The book examines the structure, anatomy, electrophysiology, and molecular biology of pheromones. It discusses how chemical signals work on different mammalian and non-mammalian species and includes chapters on insects, Drosophila, honey bees, amphibians, mice, tigers, and cattle. It also explores the controversial topic of human pheromones. An essential reference for students and researchers in the field of pheromones, this is also an ideal resource for those working on behavioral phenotyping of animal models and persons interested in the biology/ecology of wild and domestic species.
Comprehensive Overview of Advances in OlfactionThe common belief is that human smell perception is much reduced compared with other mammals, so that whatever abilities are uncovered and investigated in animal research would have little significance for humans. However, new evidence from a variety of sources indicates this traditional view is likely
"Written by two experts in the field, this book provides information useful to physicians for assessing and managing chemosensory disorders - with appropriate case-histories - and summarizes the current scientific knowledge of human olfaction. It will be of particular interest to neurologists, otolaryngologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists."--BOOK JACKET.
In a book whose insight and originality have already had a dazzling impact in France, Alain Corbin has put the sense of smell on the historical map. He conjures up the dominion that the combined forces of smells--from the seductress's civet to the ubiquitous excremental odors of city cesspools--exercised over the lives (and deaths) of the French in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Both men and women devote time and effort to removing natural body odour and replacing it with sexual attractant odours derived from plants and animals - we seem to need to smell of something other than people! Yet of all the apes, we are the most richly endowed with scent producing glands. This book examines the sense of smell in humans, comparing it with the known functions of the same sense in other animals. Odorous cues play a role in sexual physiology and behaviour in animals and there are claims that odour can play the same role in humans. The place of odours and scents in aesthetics and in psychoanalysis serves to illustrate the link between the emotional centres and the brain. The book presents arguments to explain the way in which our ancestral past has given rise to our modern day olfactory enigmas. The material is presented with as much explanation of the technical detail as possible to make the book accessible to a wide readership.
"This book is about the evolution of the sense of smell, from its bacterial origin 3.4 billion years ago, to today's modern, sophisticated humans with an insatiable appetite for perfumes and fragrances. It explains how smell works and how animals sense the environment. The relationship between sex and smell drives much of animal behaviour, and the significance of the human loss of the vomeronasal organ -- a part of the sense of smell in animals that responds to sex smells -- is identified as a seminal event in the making of humankind...It is written for readers interested in what makes us human, and does not presuppose a high level of scientific understanding. The text is comprehensive and provides key references to the relevant scientific literature. The book will appeal to scientists and students in a range of biological disciplines, including human evolution, anthropology, olfactory communication, animal behaviour, perfumery and aromatherapy." --Publisher's website.
Synthesizing coverage of sensation and reward into a comprehensive systems overview, Neurobiology of Sensation and Reward presents a cutting-edge and multidisciplinary approach to the interplay of sensory and reward processing in the brain. While over the past 70 years these areas have drifted apart, this book makes a case for reuniting sensation a