A Nobel for Explaining How the Nose Knows

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-sci-nobel5oct05.story
A Nobel for Explaining How the Nose Knows
By Thomas H. Maugh II
Times Staff Writer

October 5, 2004

The 2004 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded Monday to two American researchers for their discovery of how we recognize individual scents and how those scents can transport us in memory to past times and places.

Dr. Richard Axel of Columbia University and Linda B. Buck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle shared the award for their joint discovery of a large family of odor receptors in the nose, each of which responds uniquely to a given scent.

Collectively, those responses produce a distinctive, indelible identification in the brain in much the same way that the letters of the alphabet combine to produce unique words.

The sense of smell is one of the most primitive parts of our nervous system, yet it is so powerful that a whiff of a freshly baked madeleine can trigger intense memories of youth, or the remembrance of the foul smell of a bad clam can make one swear off seafood for life.

Congenial scents can enhance the pleasures of fine foods, exquisite wines and even falling in love, while unpleasant ones warn us of dangers, spoiled foods and other experiences best avoided.

But until Axel and Buck published their research in 1991, how the sense of smell operated "was a mystery," said Sten Grillner of the Nobel Assembly, which selects the recipients of the award. Since the discovery, researchers have been finding that other sensory systems operate in similar fashion.<snip>