Thaindian News

Washington, Mar 12 (ANI): A new study has demonstrated how neurons in the noses of mice mature after birth to help them develop a keen sense of smell they identify the mother or siblings with.

Minghong Ma at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that between birth and day 30 of development, normal neurons become six times more sensitive to their sibling’s scent, in this case, a fragrance called lyral.

Also, the mice transition from a relative indiscriminate response to different odors to being highly attuned to one specific smell.

In olfactory sensory neurons lacking OMPs, response fails to speed up over 30 days as compared to normal neurons.

The authors suggest this could be due to altered intracellular communication, since loss of the protein is associated with decreased phosphorylation of an associated enzyme called adenylate cyclase, a key player in the chemical signaling underlying the sense of smell.

Normal mouse pups, given the choice between their mother and an unrelated, lactating female, will choose to huddle with or suckle their mother 78 percent of the time.

But in the absence of OMP, newborn mice fail to make that distinction.

According to Ma, this sense of smell development could offer animals that need nursing and care for a long time before maturing a survival advantage.

“They actually learn to find their mother, home, and siblings, and to stay alive,” she said.

However, answers to some questions remain elusive, such as how they get so good at focusing on just one odorant to the exclusion of all others and can this process be modulated by early experience.

The answers she says, could possibly provide tools to influence the bonding between mother and child in early development, and even promote social interactions in autistic children.

The study is published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. (ANI)