ReviewProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2012
From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: the function of olfaction.
Review in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 102 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
102 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 218 citations in OpenAlex.
- Olfactory spatial memory: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Anchoring the human olfactory system within a functional gradient.NeuroImage · 2020Pooled it
- Article
- Olfactory learning in two Amblypygi species Paraphrynus laevifrons and Phrynus pseudoparvulus.Animal cognition · 2026Article
- Brain Morphology and Quantitative Assessment of Sensory Brain Areas in Southern Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus maccoyii (Scombridae, Teleostei).The Journal of comparative neurology · 2026Article
- Divergent selection, recombination variability, and noncoding introgression drive speciation and adaptation in threadfin Eleutheronema.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Believing in simulated virtual scents produces reported olfactory sensations.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Visual search performance depends on the congruency of olfactory sensations.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The evolution of cavefish odor perception shifts fish response from avoidance to approach when exposed to alarm and death odors.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Distinct brain regions map olfactory and visual spaces.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Wider Than the Sky: An Alternative to "Mapping" the World Onto the Brain.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Olfactory receptors and human diseases.Cell and tissue research · 2025Review
- Surgical Implantation of a Telemetry-Based Pressure Sensor in the Internal Jugular Vein to Monitor Respiration Wirelessly.Bio-protocol · 2025Article
- Flight behaviour and short-distance homing by nomadic grey-headed flying-foxes: a pilot study.Movement ecology · 2025Article
- A vector-based strategy for olfactory navigation inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- On the Fila Olfactoria and the Cribriform Region of the Crocodylia.Journal of morphology · 2025Article
- Review
- Octopus track chemosensory plumes to find food.PloS one · 2025Article
- Olfactory bulb tracks breathing rhythms and place in freely behaving mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- How do mammals convert dynamic odor information into neural maps for landscape navigation?PLoS biology · 2024Article
42 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A paradox of vertebrate brain evolution is the unexplained variability in the size of the olfactory bulb (OB), in contrast to other brain regions, which scale predictably with brain size. Such variability appears to be the result of selection for olfactory function, yet there is no obvious concordance that would predict the causal relationship between OB size and behavior. This discordance may derive from assuming the primary function of olfaction is odorant discrimination and acuity. If instead the primary function of olfaction is navigation, i.e., predicting odorant distributions in time and space, variability in absolute OB size could be ascribed and explained by variability in navigational demand. This olfactory spatial hypothesis offers a single functional explanation to account for patterns of olfactory system scaling in vertebrates, the primacy of olfaction in spatial navigation, even in visual specialists, and proposes an evolutionary scenario to account for the convergence in olfactory structure and function across protostomes and deuterostomes. In addition, the unique percepts of olfaction may organize odorant information in a parallel map structure. This could have served as a scaffold for the evolution of the parallel map structure of the mammalian hippocampus, and possibly the arthropod mushroom body, and offers an explanation for similar flexible spatial navigation strategies in arthropods and vertebrates.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.