IUBio

Can you smell neurotransmitters?

Matt Jones jonesmat at ohsu.edu
Mon Sep 28 11:33:47 EST 1998


In article <005201bde9d8$ff97fb40$5a242499 at default> RonBlue, rcb5 at MSN.COM
writes:
>Any reports that purified neurotransmitters can be smelled and create
>any unique experiences - like a tone or harmonic in a musical note?
>

I forget the exact chemical requirements for being able to smell an
organic molecule. Something to do with delocalized electrons and pi
orbitals or something like that. I can't smell GABA or glutamate,
although sometimes I smell a tangy acrid scent after sneezing, which a
histamine researcher friend of mine told me was the smell of histamine.
I'm inclined to believe this because I notice a somewhat similar scent
from those asthma inhalers, which presumably use a chemically similar set
of molecules (antihistamines, thus histamine-like molecules that
antagonize histamine receptors).

As for "creating" an experience, olfactory stimuli in general are
extraordinary for causing one to recall an earlier experience. I was once
walking through a forest in Hawaii, and caught a scent that dramatically
brought back a memory of when I was four years old in India. After
sniffing and thinking for a long time, I realized that this was the smell
of the flower of a banana tree, and I was remembering my uncles making
little boats out of them and floating them down a stream for my
amusement. It was a smell that I hadn't experienced for twenty-five
years. And sure enough, I wandered around for a while and finally found a
lone banana tree with a single flower. I couldn't find a nearby stream to
float the boat down, unfortunately.

Anyway, even if smelling a neurotransmitter could make you have a certain
experience, it would almost certainly _not_ be because it was somehow
involved in the signal cascade that "encodes" the memory. It would rather
be that the smell itself was associated with that memory, just like a
picture is associated with a memory. If I could smell GABA, I'm sure it
would remind me of late nights in the lab doing GABA experiments, rather
than some memory that was somehow encoded by GABAergic neurons.

Interesting question though.

Cheers,

Matt Jones



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