Breakthrough discovery on how mosquitoes choose 'victims' to suck blood

A team of researchers at Princeton University (USA) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) have identified a mechanism to select 'victims' to suck the blood of mosquitoes using scent, Sputnik news agency reported. May 16th.

'We have found a way that mosquitoes can distinguish the scents of humans and other animals,' said Rickard Ignell, a researcher in chemical ecology, SLU professor and member of the research team - said.

Mosquitoes seem to have different preferences for humans and animals, but humans have never understood why or how they can accurately distinguish between the two.

And with the help of odor samples from humans and different animals, the team from the US and Sweden was able to answer this question.

Mosquitoes know how to distinguish between humans and other animals through scent.

However, the hard part that researchers face is the fact that human scent is composed of hundreds of different substances, and there are substances, albeit in slightly different proportions, that can be detected. found in most mammalian scents.

Also, none of these substances are inherently attractive to mosquitoes, so the team's challenge was to determine the exact mix of substances that mosquitoes use to perceive their scent. People.

During the study, the experts collected odor samples from humans and animals (including dogs, hamsters, mice, sheep and quails), and analyzed these 'smell structures' to see if they were detected. How are structures similar and different?

A mosquito with a swollen belly filled with the blood of its victim.

The team also developed tools that can visualize activity patterns in the mosquito's brain, which processes nerve impulses from all the odor receptors that female mosquitoes have on their antennae.

According to the team, mosquitoes have a special area in the brain that is activated whenever they perceive a human smell.

"The part of the mosquito brain that is activated when stimulated with a human scent is different from the response when they are stimulated with an animal scent," explains Mr Ignell.

According to him, while some species of mosquitoes don't know whose blood they feed on and can do with almost any warm-blooded species, some species have developed an extremely precise 'locating system' to bloodsucker.

Mosquitoes have a special area in the brain that is activated whenever they sense a human smell.

New discovery of mosquito brain activity could bring researchers closer to finding ways to combat dangerous and potentially deadly diseases caused by mosquitoes, such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever, diseases that still affect millions to this day.

In the end, the researchers created a scent blend designed to trigger the same specific pattern of activity in the mosquito brain as a real human scent.

Therefore, this new finding may also form the basis for the development of new fragrance blends that can be used as mosquito monitoring and control measures, thereby helping to combat mosquito-borne diseases. .