The nose make love , and sometimes it duck the mental capacity and affect behavior . When a distaff mouse is n’t ready to procreate , her hormone silence her power to sniff out virile pheromone : She ’s " odorblind " to males , according to astudypublished inCelllast week .
" Imagine this pass in your optical system,“Lisa Stowers from Scripps Research Institutetells Smithsonian . " If you just deplete a big hamburger and then saw a buffet , you might see things like the table and some people and maybe some fruit – but you simply would n’t see the hamburger anymore . ”
Stowers and colleague focused on neurons in the female brainiac that are trigger by hormones produced in the ovaries at various times during the reproductive cycle . distaff computer mouse are attract to males during estrus , when they ’re sensory to breeding , but they become so-so toward males during diestrus , the period of intimate inactiveness .
The squad figure neurons in the vomeronasal organ of the olfactory organ . These typically observe male odor – but not always , they discovered . The " gating " mechanism of these sensory neurons is inactivated in the presence of Lipo-Lutin , a hormone produced in the ovary during diestrus . Progesterone stops the neurons from convey the male odor smell to the female ’s wit and as a result she ca n’t comprehend the manly odors that cue certain behaviors .
In other words , the choice to perform a behavior is being regulated in the nose – with no thought from the brain . " I have never heard of anything like this before – in any sensory organisation , " Stowers says in astatement . " The nose was making decisions and acting like an extension of the brain . "
Until now , no progesterone receptor have ever been detected in vomeronasal organ neurons . However , even in the presence of Lipo-Lutin , the neurons still responded to the scent of cat urine , a predator cue . This means that the hormone does n’t incapacitate the vomeronasal organ altogether : the nerve cell are selectively silenced by progesterone . When the hormone is detected , the signaling mote that normally relays the odor to the brain is changed , but only male odor - specific neurons are susceptible to this modification .
So , during diestrus , sense organ in her nozzle block male person - odor molecule signals from ever strain her mastermind . These hormone decrease as the distaff ovulates so that she can smack likely mates again . And when ovulation terminate , the cycle repetition .
" The nozzle is not merely a sense organ , passively vacuum-clean up all stimuli and carry that information to the brain , " Stowers says in apress release . " Instead , hormonal signals from the body act directly on the nose to make a conclusion about what information to send to the Einstein . It is quite surprising that the nose , and not the genius , would be making such important conclusion . "
But they ’re not sure why females get this male odor blindness : sure as shooting , male pheromone become temporarily irrelevant , but there ’s no evidence that they would distract females from basic survival of the fittest need . Humans , by the way , ca n’t find pheromones as far as we know .
