Study gets to the bottom of cats’ cute little noses
Amanda Pampuro
(CN) — If cats can smell fear, it’s thanks to an efficient and complex system of nasal channels, according to a paper published in PLOS Computational Biology on Thursday analyzing the structure of the household feline’s inner sniffer.
Noses have evolved to not only bring essential air into the lungs, but also to analyze its contents for signs of danger, food and safety. Some animals, like the dog, have long snouts to aid in accurately analyzing odors. Flat-faced animals, like the human or toad, are typically less sensitive to smells, but cats are an exception.
Contrary to what one would expect of an animal with a relatively small head and very short snout, cats exhibit an extremely sensitive sense of smell. As cat owners often attest, felines judge everything from other cats to people and foods based on a single whiff of the nose.
A team of researchers developed a 3D computer model to understand more about the aerodynamics that convey odors through a cat’s nose to its brain.
“Our results showed a distinct separation of respiratory and olfactory flow regimes, featuring a high-speed doral medial stream that increases odor delivery speed and efficiency to the ethmoid olfactory region without comprising the filtration and conditioning purpose of the nose,” the authors explained.
When cats inhale, 80% of the air in each breathe is pulled down into the lungs, while a portion of air gets sucked into a complex maze of mucus-lined chambers with olfactory sensors to send information to the brain.
The structures are much more complex and efficient at detecting odors than either the human or rat nose. Researchers estimate the cat system is 100 times more effective than animals equipped with short, direct, “amphibian-like” paths to the brain.
The domestic cat, Felis catus, shares a common ancestor with the African wildcat, Felis silvestris lybica, which likely developed a complex sense of smell as it evolved alongside human settlements.
These findings may also help researchers improve human health, said Kai Zhao, a researcher in Ohio State University‘s Department of Otolaryngology who contributed to the study. Otolaryngology is the study of the ears, nose and throat.
“Animal models can often inform about the health and function in humans, as we couldn’t perform such experiments in humans,” Zhao told Courthouse News via email. “As Covid-19 has shown us, the sense of smell is important to our daily life.”
Zhao said he hopes this study helps future neuroscience researchers understand more about how olfactory information is conveyed to the brain.
The model nose in this study belonged to a domestic short-hair adult male donated by its owners after its death at the MJ Ryan Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The computer model was developed with AMIRA software from Visualization Sciences Group from more than 3,000 high quality images.
Marks Petcare UK and the National Institute of health funded this study.