The nose may know more than we think: New research suggests a poorly-understood structure in the tip of the nose may regulate a vital mammalian alarm system. According to a paper published in linkurl:Science;http://www.sciencemag.org/ tomorrow (August 22), mice detect alarm pheromones -- signals evoking behavioral reactions such as fear and anxiety -- through a bundle of cells on the roof of the nasal cavity. This cell structure, first described by Hans Grueneberg in 1973 and called the Grueneberg ganglion (GG), is an arrow-shaped mass of about 500 cells. The system is fully developed at birth in a mouse, said Marie-Christine Broillet, lead author on the paper, and it has been found in all mammals looked at so far. Yet its function had yet to be determined. In 2006, linkurl:researchers,;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16307607?ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum re-discovering the structure, found that the cells express multiple olfactory marker proteins and project axons to the olfactory bulb,...
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