Fear has its own smell. It comes from what scientists call an "alarm pheromone."
Animals produce it when they're stressed, but how it works has long puzzled scientists. Now, a team in Switzerland has discovered an organ in the nose of mice that detects alarm pheromones — in effect, it smells fear.
The organ, known as the Grueneberg ganglion, is a tiny bundle of cells near the tip of a mouse's nose.
Marie-Christine Broillet, a biologist at the University of Lausanne, collected air samples from cages where older laboratory mice were being euthanized. When researchers exposed a live mouse to that air, the neurons in the Grueneberg ganglion started to fire. And the mouse's behavior changed. "It would just go to the opposite end of the cage and freeze," says Broillet.
Animals produce it when they're stressed, but how it works has long puzzled scientists. Now, a team in Switzerland has discovered an organ in the nose of mice that detects alarm pheromones — in effect, it smells fear.
The organ, known as the Grueneberg ganglion, is a tiny bundle of cells near the tip of a mouse's nose.
Marie-Christine Broillet, a biologist at the University of Lausanne, collected air samples from cages where older laboratory mice were being euthanized. When researchers exposed a live mouse to that air, the neurons in the Grueneberg ganglion started to fire. And the mouse's behavior changed. "It would just go to the opposite end of the cage and freeze," says Broillet.
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News,
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- quantisation
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- added August 21, 2008
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I'm surprised this is a new study. Didn't we alreadly know this from the idea that animals can 'smell your fear', and also that pets get more nervous if their owners are?
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Yeah.. I thought it was dogs that could "smell fear"
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- AaronCostello
- 5 months ago
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Fear is brown! Everyone can smell it!
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