“Smell the potassium: Surprising find in study of sex- and aggression-triggering vomeronasal organ.”
Article excerpt: “The diversity of signaling pathways perhaps make it more robust in triggering innate behaviors.” –C. Ron Yu, Ph.D., senior author of the study.
My comment:
Whether the required receptor-mediated signal transduction occurs via a VNO and AOS or through the main olfactory system (MOS), it is the molecular biology common to all species that assures us olfaction and odor receptors provide a clear evolutionary trail, which can be followed from unicellular organisms to insects to humans.
The GnRH-directed luteinizing hormone (LH) response, which links the epigenetic effects of human pheromones and food odors directly to the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors exemplifies adaptive evolution of a common response to food odors and mammalian pheromones, including human pheromones, as detailed in: Kohl, J.V. (2012) Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors. Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 2: 17338.
James V. Kohl detailedl how quantized energy-dependent microRNA biogenesis links the pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction to biophysically constrained viral latency and healthy longevity. Links from what organisms eat to the enzyme-dependent metabolism of food also link metabolic networks to microRNA-mediated genetic networks in the context of RNA interference. Drug therapies alter RNA interference by altering cell type differentiation in all cells of all individuals of all species. For comparison, during the past 26 years, Kohl has detailed how the chemistry of protein folding is biophysically constrained at every level of biological organization by conserved molecular mechanisms.