The study, conducted by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia as part of a research team, showed that the perception of smell is different in each of the two nostrils. Research results Published in the journal Current Biology.
10 volunteers participated in the study. Scientists connected special tubes into each nostril. It was stated that all of the participants had epilepsy, so electrodes were previously placed in their brain structures. This method of therapy is called electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve. Thanks to stimulation with weak pulses of electric current, seizures become less frequent and sometimes stop completely.
The presence of electrical stimulators allowed scientists to monitor the volunteers’ brain activity throughout the experiment. After inserting the tubes, the scientists alternately injected eucalyptus, coffee and banana scents into each of the subjects’ nostrils. The researchers asked patients to identify odors while recording brain activity in the piriform cortex, the main part of the cerebral cortex involved in odor discrimination.
Each side of the piriform cortex took different amounts of time to process odor information from different nostrils. When the same odor was alternately introduced into each nostril, brain activity was similar but not identical, indicating a certain independence of perception. In addition, it turned out that two nostrils “inform” the brain faster and more accurately than multiple nostrils.
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Source: Gazeta
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