Historically, the human sense of smell has been regarded as the odd stepchild of the senses, especially compared to the sensory bravado of seeing, touching, and hearing. The idea that the human olfaction has little to contribute to our experience of the world is commonplace, though with the emergence of COVID-19 there has rather been a sea change in this understanding. An ever increasing body of work has convincingly highlighted the keen capabilities of the human nose and the sophistication of the human olfactory system. Here, we provide a concise overview of the neuroscience of human olfaction spanning the last 10–15 years, with focus on the peripheral and central mechanisms that underlie how odor information is processed, packaged, parceled, predicted, and perturbed to serve odor-guided behaviors. We conclude by offering some guideposts for harnessing the next decade of olfactory research in all its shapes and forms.

中文翻译：

---

人类嗅觉系统是做什么的，它是如何做到的？


从历史上看，人类的嗅觉一直被视为感官的奇怪继子，尤其是与视觉、触摸和听觉的感官虚张声势相比。人类嗅觉对我们对世界的体验几乎没有贡献的想法是司空见惯的，尽管随着 COVID-19 的出现，这种理解发生了翻天覆地的变化。越来越多的工作令人信服地突出了人类鼻子的敏锐能力和人类嗅觉系统的复杂性。在这里，我们简要概述了过去 10-15 年人类嗅觉的神经科学，重点是气味信息如何被处理、打包、打包、预测和扰动以服务于气味引导行为的外围和中枢机制。最后，我们提供了一些路标，以利用未来十年各种形式和形式的嗅觉研究。