Olfactory maps overturn our idea of smell

The most detailed map ever of the olfactory receptors in the mouse nose transforms our understanding of the sense of smell. Instead of a handful of broad zones, in which receptors are essentially random, “each receptor adopts a particular position in the nose”, says neurobiologist and study co-author Sandeep Robert Datta. And the arrangement of receptors in the nose is mirrored in the part of the brain responsible for smell. “This means that the maps in the nose and the brain are not two separate problems the system has to solve, but two readouts of the same developmental logic,” says psychologist and experimental neuroscientist Johan Lundström. “This is a landmark paper that overturns one of the foundational textbook models of olfactory organisation.”