Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Institute for Mind and Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Chem Senses. 2021 Jan 1;46. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjaa074.
Although orthonasal odorants are often associated with the external environment, retronasal odorants are accompanied by consummatory behaviors and indicate an internal state of an animal. Our study aimed to examine whether the same odorants may generate a consistent perceptual experience when 2 olfactory routes potentiate variations in concentration in the nasal cavity and orosensory activation. A customized lick spout with vacuum removing odorants around the animal's nares was used to render a pure retronasal exposure experience. We found that pre-exposing rats to odorants retronasally with positive or negative reinforcers (sweet or bitter) lead to a significant learning rate difference between high- and low-vapor-pressure odorants. This effect was not observed for novel odorants, suggesting that odorants may generate similar perceptual quality in a volatility-dependent manner.
虽然嗅入气味通常与外部环境有关，但鼻后气味伴随着消费行为，并表明动物的内部状态。我们的研究旨在检验当 2 种嗅觉途径增强鼻腔内浓度和口味觉激活的变化时，相同的气味是否会产生一致的知觉体验。使用带有真空去除动物鼻腔周围气味的定制舔嘴，以实现纯鼻后暴露体验。我们发现，预先用正强化物（甜味剂）或负强化物（苦味剂）鼻后暴露大鼠会导致高蒸气压和低蒸气压气味之间的学习率有显著差异。对于新的气味，这种影响并不明显，这表明气味可能以挥发性依赖的方式产生相似的知觉质量。
