Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind by A.S. Barwich

Decades of cognition research have shown that external stimuli “spark” neural patterns in particular regions of the brain. We think of the brain as a space we can map: here it responds to faces, there it perceives a sensation. But the sense of smell―only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience―doesn’t work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it?

A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle, and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odors.

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