Newswise — The odor of bobcat urine, if you ever get a chance to take a whiff, is unforgettable — like rotten meat combined with sweat, with something indescribably feral underlying it.

To humans, it’s just nose-wrinklingly disgusting.

But to mice, it smells like one thing: fear.

Rodents respond instinctually to this trace of their natural predator. Even those mice raised in the lab, which have never been exposed to bobcats — or cats of any sort — respond to it.

Now, a study has identified nerve cells and a region of the brain behind this innate fear response.

A research team led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center biologist and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linda Buck has pinpointed a tiny area of the mouse brain responsible for this scent-induced reaction.

The study is to be published in the journal Nature.

Dr. Buck is available for interviews upon request.