Definition
Olfaction or the olfactory systems refer to the sense of smell.
Detailed Description
In natural environments, airborne chemical stimuli can occur unpredictably in time and space, and odorants from many sources intermix. The olfactory system of animals is capable of detecting stimuli of interest to the animal within these chemically noisy environments. To achieve this, the system has to extract relevant signals, compare the extracted stimulus to previously experienced odors, differentiate relevant from irrelevant stimuli, and cue an appropriate response. Many of the neural circuit elements comprising the olfactory system are thought to contribute to these processes. Computational models of olfactory processing have at the forefront of attributing function to experimentally described neurons and networks (Fig. 1).
References
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Further Reading
Cleland TA, Linster C (2005) Computation in the olfactory system. Chem Senses 30(9):801–813
Crasto CJ (2009) Computational biology of olfactory receptors. Curr Bioinform 4(1):8–15
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Schoppa NE, Urban NN (2003) Dendritic processing within olfactory bulb circuits. Trends Neurosci 26(9):501–506
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Linster, C. (2014). Olfaction: Overview. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_786-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_786-1
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Olfaction: Overview- Published:
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_786-2
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Olfaction: Overview- Published:
- 26 March 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_786-1