What kinds of research projects are underway to help us understand how aromatherapy works and to expand its usefulness?
There is a growing body of evidence in the scientific literature suggesting that plant essential oils, alone or in combination with other therapies, may be beneficial in treating a number of health conditions. The sense of smell has long been known to influence behavior in animals and humans, but scientists couldn’t access the olfactory system’s inner working to find out how. Then, in 1991, molecular biologist Linda Buck, then at Columbia University, New York, and then-colleague molecular biologist Richard Axel, cloned a large family of odor receptor proteins. This work allowed researchers to begin deciphering the olfactory code – a discovery that would lead to understanding how the brain knows what the nose smells, and ultimately how odors influence behavior. “Ten years ago, the field was practically a backwater, and then Buck and Axel discovered the olfactory receptors,” says [Duke University neurobiologist Larry] Katz. “That broke the field open and put it on firm molecular footing,
