Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.
Chem Senses. 2020 Oct 9;45(7):513-521. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjaa045.
Probing the neural mechanisms that underlie each sensory system requires the presentation of perceptually appropriate stimulus concentrations. This is particularly relevant in the olfactory system as additional odorant receptors typically respond with increasing stimulus concentrations. Thus, perceptual measures of olfactory sensitivity provide an important guide for functional experiments. This study focuses on aliphatic alcohols because they are commonly used to survey neural activity in a variety of olfactory regions, probe the behavioral limits of odor discrimination, and assess odor-structure activity relationships in mice. However, despite their frequent use, a systematic study of the relative sensitivity of these odorants in mice is not available. Thus, we assayed the ability of C57BL/6J mice to detect a homologous series of primary aliphatic alcohols (1-propanol to 1-heptanol) using a head-fixed Go/No-Go operant conditioning assay combined with highly reproducible stimulus delivery. To aid in the accessibility of our data, we report the animal's threshold to each odorant according to the 1) ideal gas condition, 2) nonideal gas condition (factoring in the activity of the odorant in the solvent), and 3) the liquid dilution of the odorant in the olfactometer. Of the odorants tested, mice were most sensitive to 1-hexanol and least sensitive to 1-butanol. These updated measures of murine sensitivity will hopefully guide experimenters in choosing appropriate stimulus concentrations for experiments using these odorants.
探究每个感觉系统的神经机制需要呈现感知上合适的刺激浓度。这在嗅觉系统中尤为重要,因为额外的气味受体通常会随着刺激浓度的增加而做出反应。因此,嗅觉敏感性的感知测量为功能实验提供了重要的指导。本研究集中在脂肪醇上,因为它们常用于调查各种嗅觉区域的神经活动,探测气味辨别行为的极限,并评估小鼠中气味-结构活性关系。然而,尽管它们经常被使用,但这些气味剂在小鼠中的相对敏感性的系统研究尚未报道。因此,我们使用头部固定的 Go/No-Go 操作性条件反射测定法,结合高度可重复的刺激传递,检测 C57BL/6J 小鼠检测一系列同源的脂肪醇(1-丙醇到 1-庚醇)的能力。为了方便我们的数据访问,我们根据以下情况报告动物对每种气味剂的阈值:1)理想气体条件,2)非理想气体条件(考虑到溶剂中气味剂的活性),以及 3)气味计中气味剂的液体稀释。在所测试的气味剂中,小鼠对 1-己醇最敏感,对 1-丁醇最不敏感。这些更新的小鼠敏感性测量值有望为使用这些气味剂进行实验的实验人员选择适当的刺激浓度提供指导。