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What kind of book are you looking for? The "Springer Handbook of Odor" is a comprehensive reference, although it mainly covers the "input" side of things. If you're more interested in the Neuroscience of smell, you could try Chapter 6 in Liqun Luo's "Principles of Neurobiology".

BTW, anaesthesia is not mediated by olfaction, but by diffusion of anaesthetic agents into the bloodstream.

edit: if you are looking for a more general and accessible introduction, you could look at Charles Sell's "Chemistry and the sense of smell". It goes into reasonable detail but still maintains genral readability, unlike the science textbooks I recommended above.



Thank you for the recommendations.

I am interested in both a General Overview and Neuroscience specific viewpoints (specifically Memory/Emotions and Smell) and hence will take a look at the suggested books (have a Bachelors in Chemistry though long since forgotten!).

On a side note (since you seem to be knowledgable), can you recommend some good books on Neuroscience, The Brain/Nervous System and The Immune System?


Re Neuroscience and Brain/Nervous System I like Liqun Luo's Textbook that I mentioned above. I don't know much about immune system books unfortunately.

Concerning memory and smell, you'll most likely find information in the "popular science" category. Personally I am skeptical about the often-touted "special link" between smell and memory. I don't believe that this link is any more special than the one between vision and memory.

You could also look at Paolo Pelosi's "On The Scent" for a book on the sense of smell aimed at a scientifically keen lay audience.




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