Hinterwirth Armin, Zeiner Reinhard, Tichy Harald
Department of Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Eur J Neurosci. 2004 Jun;19(12):3389-92. doi: 10.1111/j.0953-816X.2004.03386.x.
In insects, information about food odour is encoded by olfactory receptor cells with characteristic response spectra, located in several types of cuticular sensilla. Within short, hair-like sensilla on the cockroach's antenna, antagonistic pairs of olfactory receptor cells shape information inflow to the CNS by providing excitatory responses for both increases and decreases in food odour concentration. The segregation of food odour information into parallel ON and OFF responses suggests that temporal concentration changes become enhanced in the sensory output. When food odour concentration changes slowly and continuously up and down with smooth transition from one direction to another, the ON and OFF olfactory cells not only signal a succession of odour concentrations but also the rate with which odour concentration happens to be changing. Access to the values of such cues is of great use to an insect orientating to an odour source. With them they may extract concentration gradients from odour plumes.
在昆虫中，关于食物气味的信息由位于几种类型表皮感受器中的具有特征性反应谱的嗅觉感受细胞编码。在蟑螂触角上短的毛发状感受器内，拮抗对的嗅觉感受细胞通过对食物气味浓度的增加和减少都提供兴奋性反应来塑造传入中枢神经系统的信息流。将食物气味信息分离为平行的开启和关闭反应表明，时间浓度变化在感觉输出中得到增强。当食物气味浓度缓慢且连续地上下变化并从一个方向平滑过渡到另一个方向时，开启和关闭嗅觉细胞不仅能发出一系列气味浓度的信号，还能发出气味浓度恰好变化的速率信号。获取这些线索的值对定向于气味源的昆虫非常有用。有了它们，昆虫可以从气味羽流中提取浓度梯度。
