Olfaction

Olfaction is the sense of smell. The sense of smell is how a human or animal notices a smell (or odour) by using the nose. Many animals have better noses than people. Some animals can detect small particles in the air or sometimes water that people cannot.

People have special cells in the nose that can detect some chemicals. There are roughly 400 of them.^[1] These are special nerve cells attached to the olfactory epithelium. All vertebrates have these cells. The smell is first processed by the olfactory system. The information is given to the olfactory bulb in the front of the forebrain.

In insects, smells are sensed by sensillum on the antennae and first processed by the antennal lobe.

1. ↑ "Olfactory". Essex Partnership University NHS Trust. Retrieved 2024-05-25.