First detailed ‘smell maps’ reveal how noses track odours - Nature

Researchers created the first high-resolution maps of olfactory receptors across the mouse nasal epithelium, overturning longstanding textbook models of receptor organization. Media coverage has framed the findings as revealing a once 'lost' map of smell, bringing broader attention to the study's implications. The maps reveal unexpected spatial arrangements of receptor types, showing that receptor organization outside the brain can profoundly shape neural signaling and behavior. A new Nature study mapping expanded motor cortical projections in a singing mouse complements this work by applying similarly detailed mapping to motor circuits, together illustrating how precise anatomical organization — both peripheral and central — underpins specialized behaviors.