Olfactory System

Keyword

Olfactory Bulb - The olfactory bulb transmits smell information from the nose to the brain, and is thus necessary for a proper sense of smell. 

Olfactory glands -  might secrete proteins such as lysozyme, amylase and IgA similarly to serous glands. The exact composition of the secretions from olfactory glands is unclear, but there is evidence that they produce odorant binding protein.

Olfactory Receptor Neuron -  An odorant will dissolve into the mucus of the olfactory epithelium and then bind to an OR. ORs can bind to a variety of odor molecules, with varying affinities.

Olfactory neurons are receptor cells in the epithelium that detect odor molecules dissolved in the mucus and transmit information about the odor to the brain in a process called sensory transduction.

Olfactory neurons have cilia (tiny hairs) containing proteins that bind to odor molecules, causing an electrical response that spreads through the receptor cells to the olfactory nerve fibers at the back of the nasal cavity.

Olfactory Nerves -  transmit nerve impulses about odors to the central nervous system.

Olfactory nerves and fibers transmit information about odors from the peripheral olfactory system to the central olfactory system of the brain, which is separated from the epithelium by the cribriform plate (It is a part of ethmoid bone and supports the olfactory bulb.) of the ethmoid bone. (The ethmoid bone is an unpaired bone in the skull that separates the nasal cavity from the brain.).

Olfactory nerve fibers, which originate in the epithelium, pass through the cribriform plate, connecting the epithelium to the brain's limbic system at the olfactory bulbs.

Mitral cells  - are neurons that are part of the olfactory system. They are located in the olfactory bulb in the mammalian central nervous system. They receive information from the axons of olfactory receptor neurons, forming synapses (In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron.) in neuropils called glomeruli.

olfactory epithelium -  specialized epithelial tissue inside the nasal cavity that is involved in smell.

A glomerulus -   is a network (as a tuft) of capillaries (any of the fine branching blood vessels that form a network between the arterioles and venules.) located at the beginning of a nephron (is the basic structural and functional unit of the kidney. Its chief function is to regulate the concentration of water and soluble substances like sodium salts by filtering the blood, reabsorbing what is needed and excreting the rest as urine.) in the kidney. It serves as the first stage in the filtering process of the blood carried out by the nephron in its formation of urine.