Historically, the human sense of smell has been regarded as the odd stepchild of the senses, especially compared to the sensory bravado of seeing, touching, and hearing. The idea that the human olfaction has little to contribute to our experience of the world is commonplace, though with the emergence of COVID-19 there has rather been a sea change in this understanding. An ever increasing body of work has convincingly highlighted the keen capabilities of the human nose and the sophistication of the human olfactory system. Here, we provide a concise overview of the neuroscience of human olfaction spanning the last 10–15 years, with focus on the peripheral and central mechanisms that underlie how odor information is processed, packaged, parceled, predicted, and perturbed to serve odor-guided behaviors. We conclude by offering some guideposts for harnessing the next decade of olfactory research in all its shapes and forms.

中文翻译：

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人类嗅觉系统的作用是什么？它是如何工作的？


从历史上看，人类的嗅觉一直被认为是感官的奇怪继子，特别是与视觉、触觉和听觉的感官虚张声势相比。人们普遍认为人类的嗅觉对我们对世界的体验几乎没有贡献，但随着新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 的出现，这种认识发生了巨大的变化。越来越多的研究令人信服地强调了人类鼻子的敏锐能力和人类嗅觉系统的复杂性。在这里，我们对过去 10-15 年人类嗅觉的神经科学进行了简要概述，重点关注气味信息如何处理、打包、分配、预测和扰动以服务于气味引导的外围和中枢机制。行为。最后，我们提供了一些指导方针，以帮助利用未来十年各种形式的嗅觉研究。