Past research has shown that odor perception can be affected by how we label odors. The aim of this study was to expand on previous work by investigating the impact of labels on edibility, pleasantness, and intensity ratings as well as on reaction times when detecting labeled odors. We tested 50 subjects. Five odorants were administered, each with a positive and a negative label. Participants h...

1. Electrophysiological recordings were made on the ventral olfactory epithelium of the salamander Ambystoma tigrinum in order to investigate whether individual odorants can elicit unique patterns of receptor neuron responses. 2. Slow transepithelial voltage transients, Veog(-), were recorded from 30 sites on each epithelium. For each odorant a topographic pattern was derived from the Veog(-) a...

Introduction Processing odor information by the olfactory system depends greatly on the odor concentration. In order to use an odorant in a smell identification test (SIT), the minimum identification concentration (MIC) needs to be determined. Materials and Methods This study was conducted in 60 healthy native individuals aged 20 to 60 years, selected from patients' companions in a tertiary h...

This contribution serves a dual purpose. The first purpose was to investigate the possibility of using a sensor array (an electronic tongue) for on-line identification and quantification of key odorants representing a variety of chemical groups at two different acidities, pH 6 and 8. The second purpose was to simplify the electronic tongue by decreasing the number of electrodes from 14, which w...

Many parasitic nematodes actively seek out hosts in which to complete their lifecycles. Olfaction is thought to play an important role in the host-seeking process, with parasites following a chemical trail toward host-associated odors. However, little is known about the olfactory cues that attract parasitic nematodes to hosts or the behavioral responses these cues elicit. Moreover, what little ...

From amphibian data, two mechanisms that could underlie the encoding of odorants by the mucosal activity patterns they engender are as follows (1) receptors with similar odorant selectivities could be aggregated spatially on the mucosa (inherent patterns); (2) in analogy to gas chromatography, as odorants are drawn along the surface of the mucosa the strongly sorbed ones could be deposited pref...

Odorants inhibit as well as excite olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) in many species of animals. Cyclic nucleotide-dependent activation of canonical mammalian ORNs is well established but it is still unclear how odorants inhibit these cells. Here we further implicate phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K), an indispensable element of PI signaling in many cellular processes, in olfactory transduction ...

A multitude of analytical systems are needed to analyze diverse odorants with various functionalities. In this study, an experimental method was developed to assess the maximum covering range of odorants using a single experimental setup consisting of a thermal desorber-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry system. To this end, a total of 20 offensive odorants (aldehyde, ketone, ester, alcohol, ...

The surface of the mammalian olfactory bulb (OB) is covered by numerous glomeruli. Since individual glomeruli represent a single odorant receptor (OR) among a repertoire of nearly 1000 ORs, the spatial assembly of the glomeruli forms the maps of ORs. How are the numerous ORs represented spatially in the glomerular maps? Studies of mapping of odorant-induced glomerular activity using the optical...

Primary sensory afferents of the dorsal root and trigeminal ganglia constantly transmit sensory information depicting the individual's physical and chemical environment to higher brain regions. Beyond the typical trigeminal stimuli (e.g. irritants), environmental stimuli comprise a plethora of volatile chemicals with olfactory components (odorants). In spite of a complete loss of their sense of...