Sense of Smell

Olfactory receptor cells—neurons in your nose that allow you to smell—are neurons that can regenerate throughout life. Although these cells are continually being born and dying, they maintain the same connections as their ancestors. The result is that once you learn a smell, it always smells the same to you despite the fact that there are always new neurons smelling it! Generally, breathing through one nostril activates the opposite brain hemisphere. According to Rita Carter in the book Mapping the Mind, smell is the exception to the brain’s cross-over rule. That is, odors are processed on the same side of the brain as the nostril that senses them. Bandler and Grinder. in their book Reframing, reported that due to the way smells are processed neurologically, they have a much more direct impact on behavior and responses than do other sensory inputs. Odors are decoded in the 2^nd brain layer, the mammalian layer.