So they say. This from Harvard Medical School:
David Ferrero and Stephen Liberles, neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School, have discovered a single compound found in high concentrations in the urine of carnivores that triggers an instinctual avoidance response in mice and rats. This is the first time that scientists have identified a chemical tag that would let rodents sense carnivores in general from a safe distance.
The authors write that understanding the molecular basis of predator odor recognition by rodents will provide crucial tools to study the neural circuitry associated with innate behavior.
Their findings were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on June 20, 2011.
The search began in 2006, when Stephen Liberles, now assistant professor of cell biology at Harvard Medical School, was working as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Linda Buck. Buck was part of the team that won the 2004 Nobel Prize for identifying the receptors that allow olfactory neurons to detect odors.
…According to Liberles, “In humans, the parts of the brain that deal with likes and dislikes go awry in many diseases, like drug addiction, and predator odor responses have been used to model stress and anxiety disorders. Going from chemicals to receptors to neural circuits to behaviors is a Holy Grail of neuroscience.”
“The neural circuits are like a black box, but here we have identified a chemical stimulant and a candidate receptor that triggers one behavior,” Ferrero said. “We feel this is an important first step to understanding the neural circuitry of innate behavior.”