Sentences with phrase «accessory olfactory bulb»

Now researchers report that by inserting ultra-fine electrodes into the brains of live mice, they have identified which neural cells in the accessory olfactory bulb fire when one mouse checks out another's pheromonal fingerprint.

Lawrence Katz of the Duke University Medical Center and his colleagues discovered that once signals reach the accessory olfactory bulb they are mapped out into distinct patterns of nerve cell activity that vary according to the traits that enable a mouse to identify desirable mates, such as species and sex.

Pheromones are detected by the so - called vomeronasal organ, which sits in the nasal cavity and sets off a cascade of nerve signals that ends in the accessory olfactory bulb, the organ that processes pheromones.

Whether or not humans possess an accessory olfactory bulb or have tacked pheromonal signaling onto the list of the main olfactory system's chores remains a matter of debate.