Related papers: Quantum smell: tunneling mechanisms in olfaction
Our sense of smell relies on sensitive, selective atomic-scale processes that are initiated when a scent molecule meets specific receptors in the nose. However, the physical mechanisms of detection are not clear. While odorant shape and…
The validity of the dissipative quantum model of olfaction has not been examined yet and therefore the model suffers from the lack of experimental support. Here, we generalize the model and propose a numerical analysis of the dissipative…
The sense of smell is an important part of living organisms. It assists with the interaction of the living organism with its environment. The mechanism by which smell is detected and identified is not fully known. Earlier, shape theory was…
The standard model for molecular recognition of an odorant is that receptor sites discriminate by molecular geometry as evidenced that two chiral molecules may smell very differently. However, recent studies of isotopically labeled…
Understanding how molecular structure gives rise to odor perception remains a long-standing challenge, with ongoing debate over whether olfaction is primarily governed by molecular shape, vibrational properties, or their interplay at the…
We present a model of a coupled system of the olfactory bulb and cortex. Odor inputs to the epithelium are transformed to oscillatory bulbar activities. The cortex recognizes the odor by resonating to the bulbar oscillating pattern when the…
Predicting the relationship between a molecule's structure and its odor remains a difficult, decades-old task. This problem, termed quantitative structure-odor relationship (QSOR) modeling, is an important challenge in chemistry, impacting…
Mitral cells, the principal neurons in the olfactory bulb, respond to odorants by firing bursts of action potentials called sharp events. A given cell produces a sharp event at a fixed phase during the sniff cycle in response to a given…
Inelastic electron transfer being regarded as one of the potential mechanisms to explain the odorant recognition in the atomic-scale processes is still a matter of intense debate. Here, we propose multiphonon processes of electrons transfer…
Olfactory systems use a small number of broadly sensitive receptors to combinatorially encode a vast number of odors. We propose a method of decoding such distributed representations by exploiting a statistical fact: receptors that do not…
The vibrational theory of olfaction was posited to explain subtle effects in the sense of smell inexplicable by models in which molecular structure alone determines an odorant's smell. Amazingly, behavioral and neurophysiological evidence…
We present a model of an olfactory system that performs odor segmentation. Based on the anatomy and physiology of natural olfactory systems, it consists of a pair of coupled modules, bulb and cortex. The bulb encodes the odor inputs as…
Animals smelling in the real world use a small number of receptors to sense a vast number of natural molecular mixtures, and proceed to learn arbitrary associations between odors and valences. Here, we propose a new interpretation of how…
The olfactory sense measures the chemical composition of the environment using a diverse array of olfactory receptors. In vertebrates, the olfactory receptors reside in a mucus layer in the nasal cavity and can thus only detect odorants…
Motivated by a proposed olfactory mechanism based on a vibrationally-activated molecular switch, we study electron transport within a donor-acceptor pair that is coupled to a vibrational mode and embedded in a surrounding environment. We…
Olfactory perception plays a critical role in both human and organismal interactions, yet understanding of its underlying mechanisms and influencing factors remain insufficient. Molecular structures influence odor perception through…
Predicting olfactory perception directly from molecular structure is central to fragrance design that plays a role in a wide range of industries, such as perfumery, food and beverage, and health care. Among olfactory attributes, odor…
Mammalian odorant binding proteins (OBPs) have long been suggested to transport hydrophobic odorant molecules through the aqueous environment of the nasal mucus. While the function of OBPs as odorant transporters is supported by their…
We examine the olfactory discrimination of left- and right-handed enantiomers of chiral odorants based on the odorant-mediated electron transport from a donor to an acceptor of the olfactory receptors embodied in a biological environment.…
Mitral cells of the olfactory bulb form sparse representations of the odorants and transmit this information to the cortex. The olfactory code carried by the mitral cells is sparser than the inputs that they receive. In this study we…