Insects can learn, allowing them great flexibility for locating seasonal food sources and avoiding wily predators. Because insects are relatively simple and accessible to manipulation, they provide good experimental preparations for exploring mechanisms underlying sensory coding and memory. Here we review how the intertwining of memory with computation enables the coding, decoding, and storage ...

According to the Proust phenomenon, olfactory memory triggers are more evocative than other-modality triggers resulting in more emotional and detailed memories. An experimental paradigm was used to investigate this in aversive memories, similar to those experienced by patients with posttraumatic stress disorder. Seventy healthy participants watched an aversive film, while simultaneously being e...

How the results of this project will benefit society: Abnormalities in the sense of smell have particular clinical relevance for patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in whom deficits of smell identification and discrimination arise early in the course of illness, and often before the emergence of overt cognitive symptoms such as memory loss. Given the early accumulation of Alzheimer’s pathol...

Defects of either anosmin-1 or fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) are known to underlie hereditary Kallmann's syndrome (KS), a human disorder of olfactory and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neuronal ontogeny. Here, we report a functional interaction between anosmin-1 and the FGFR1-FGF2-heparan sulfate complex, leading to amplified responses in the FGFR1 signaling pathway. In hum...

Removal of the olfactory bulbs from the rodent induces neuronal reorganisation and the expression of behavioural, neurochemical, neuroendocrine and immune changes that resemble those observed in major depressive disorder. As such this model is widely used to examine the neurobiological substrates that may underlie the pathophysiology of depression and screen antidepressant agents. One of the mo...

INTRODUCTION Olfactory dysfunction develops in many neurodegenerative diseases, and is an early feature of the most common neurodegen-erative disorder, Alzheimer's disease (AD). 1–5 Anatomically, the central olfactory pathways traverse brain regions implicated in the common neurodegenerative diseases, including the mesial temporal and inferior frontal lobes. 6–10 Phenotypically, AD shows substa...

To the Editor: Olfactory reference syndrome (ORS) is a condition characterized by concerns about perceived body odor, which may lead to repetitive behaviors to diminish the odor, as well as to avoidance of social interactions.1,2 A range of other terms describing olfactory reference symptomatology has appeared in the literature; for example, based on the observation that it involves a single be...