Most of us take our senses for granted, at least until one of them stops working. But despite the usefulness of smell, sight, touch and the other senses, they took millions of years to work themselves out. Indeed, many creatures in the tree of life have evolved just fine without eyes or ears, while others have senses we can only imagine. Just the fact that we can see and smell is something of a miracle, and scientists are still learning how they work — and how they work together.
“Natural environments require humans and other species to constantly integrate visual and olfactory sensory cues,” the authors of an October study in Nature describe how odors are represented in the human brain at the most basic level, that of individual neurons involved in olfaction, or smell. Until now, little has been known on how this actually happens in the human brain.
