The critical period concept has been one of the most transcendent in science, education, and society forming the basis of our fixation on 'quality' of childhood experiences. The neural basis of this process has been revealed in developmental studies of visual, auditory and somatosensory maps and their enduring modification through manipulations of experience early in life. Olfaction, too, possesses a number of phenomena that share key characteristics with classical critical periods like sensitive temporal windows and experience dependence. In this review, we analyze the candidate critical period-like phenomena in olfaction and find them disanalogous to classical critical periods in other sensory systems in several important ways. This leads us to speculate as to why olfaction may be alone among exteroceptive systems in lacking classical critical periods and how life-long neurogenesis of olfactory sensory neurons and bulbar interneurons-a neotenic vestige-- relates to the structure and function of the mammalian olfactory system.

中文翻译：

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永远年轻：Neoteny，神经发生和嗅觉关键时期的批判。

关键时期的概念是科学，教育和社会中最先进的概念之一，构成了我们对童年经历“质量”的固定基础。在视觉，听觉和体感图的开发研究中以及通过对生命早期的操纵进行的持久修改，已经揭示了该过程的神经基础。嗅觉也具有许多现象，这些现象与经典的关键时期（如敏感的时间窗口和经验依赖）具有关键特征。在这篇综述中，我们分析了嗅觉中的候选关键时期样现象，并通过几种重要方式发现它们与其他感官系统中的经典关键时期不同。