#microsmatic

[anacajic]

Random thaught 01

2021

As I reaserch about different senses and the way our brain functions I wonder what would happen if we as human beings developed differently. Would our suroundings be different and adapt to our senses or would we just constantly be in sense overload.

The Lives of the Brain : Human Evolution and the Organ of Mind

by John S Allen (John Scott)

-”  Human brains consist of a hundred billion neurons, each with connections to tens of thousands of other neurons. The number of possible connections among these neurons defies comprehension. Furthermore, these neurons are not simply connected to each other like bricks in a wall: They are in communication via an electrochemical junction at each synapse. Our neurons coalesce into interactive networks whose concerted actions regulate the behavior of the human body from breathing to composing music.”

-" At any given instant, the brain takes an abundance of sensory information and combines it with information drawn from memory to generate a perception or a thought.”

-”Clinical studies long ago showed that the cerebellum is critical in the control of movement, including eye movements, postural adjustments, and motor learning.”

“The sense of smell is still important to humans, but just not as important as it is to some other mammals. On the other hand, some mammals, such as the toothed whales, have lost the sense of smell entirely. Anato- mists have long taken the size of the olfactory bulbs as being an indicator of the importance of smell to a species (Smith and Bhatnagar 2004). Primates are considered to be microsmatic as opposed to macrosmatic mammals; that is, they are less rather than more reliant on the sense of smell. It is generally agreed that primates have emphasized the visual sense over that of smell, and primate olfactory bulbs make up a much smaller proportion of the total brain volume compared to those of insectivores or carnivores, for example (Jerison 1991).”

[viralpearl-blog]

To recognize conspecifics chimpanzees use their sense of smell -- ScienceDaily

To recognize conspecifics chimpanzees use their sense of smell — ScienceDaily

Chemical communication is widely used in the animal kingdom to convey social information. For example, animals use olfactory cues to recognize group or family members, or to choose genetically suitable mates. In contrast to most other mammals, however, primates have traditionally been regarded as “microsmatic” — having a poor sense of smell. Although research on olfaction in some primate species…