Source: University of California - Berkeley
Date: December 7, 2011
Summary:
University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientists have discovered a genetic trigger that makes the nose renew its smell sensors, providing hope for new therapies for people who have lost their sense of smell due to trauma or old age. The gene tells olfactory stem cells ‑ the adult tissue stem cells in the nose ‑ to mature into the sensory neurons that detect odors and relay that information to the brain. The discovery may also help scientists harness olfactory stem cells and stem cells found in other sensory systems more generally, to recover sensory function following injury or degenerative disease, scientists said. The findings are published in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Neuron.
