OLFACTORY EPITHELIUM: THE NOSE AT SPOTLIGHT.
The nose is one of the parts of our body with so much functionality. It not only serves as a part that beautifies us (if the nose was cut off, we would look like monsters!) or a medium for breathing, it is also the sense organ for smell. It is one of the sensory organs that make up the chemosensory system. The chemosensory system consist of the senses for taste and for smell.
The sense of smell does end at perceiving the scent of beautiful flowers and deciding if the food will be delicious or not, but also go far as to the extent of determining who is trustworthy through body odour which is quite unique for everyone. Thus, it enables not only man but animals too to escape predators. Sense of smell helps in attraction too.
Have you ever had the urge to have sex due to the nice odour of the person sitting beside you or not be in the mood because of the odour of your partner? If yes, do u know it was caused by the sense of smell? Am glad you know now that sense of smell helps in attraction and love.
Sense of smell also triggers memories, reminding us something that happened sometime when we perceived that same smell.
HOW THE NOSE WORKS
Our nose doesn't just allow us to breath or sense smell, it also acts as a filter for the air we breath so as not to breath in dust particles into our body system. There are two holes in our nose know as nostrils. What is does is to allow air to pass into our nose. The air flows and enters the nasal cavity were it is been filtered by the hairs in the nasal cavity while the air is warmed by the mucus which acts as a lining in the nasal cavity.
Within the nasal cavity, there is the olfactory epithelium situated on the roof of the nasal cavity which it's major work is to send scent signals to our brains.
Thus when the air hits the olfactory epithelium, the smell of what we just perceived is sent to our brain. The olfactory epithelium sends the smell signal to the brain through help of the olfactory bulb and the olfactory nerve. When the brain receives the signal it translates it to the same reaction it learnt from the previous exposure.
There are also small hairs called cilia. The cilia with the help of the mucus catches the particles missed by the larger hairs. After that, the air flows down the nasal cavity into the larynx then to the lungs.
If our noses were cut off, it would be awfully bad since we would find it quite hard to breath though not impossible but the sense of smell would be lost completely.
by @whileponderin.
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