Dionne V E, Dubin A E
Boston University Marine Program, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543.
J Exp Biol. 1994 Sep;194:1-21. doi: 10.1242/jeb.194.1.1.
Odors are powerful stimuli that can focus the attention, elicit behaviors (or misbehaviors) and even resurrect forgotten memories. These actions are directed by the central nervous system, but they depend upon the initial transduction of chemical signals by olfactory receptor neurons. Electrophysiological recordings suggest that the responses of olfactory receptor neurons to odors are more diverse than was initially believed, being mediated by effects on several different conductances. Both excitatory and inhibitory responses are produced by these effects and some, if not all, odors can affect more than one component of the membrane conductance. The extent of this diversity is reviewed here, and its impact on our understanding of odor discrimination is discussed.
气味是强大的刺激因素，能够集中注意力、引发行为（或不当行为），甚至唤起被遗忘的记忆。这些行为由中枢神经系统指导，但它们依赖于嗅觉受体神经元对化学信号的初始转导。电生理记录表明，嗅觉受体神经元对气味的反应比最初认为的更加多样，是由对几种不同电导的影响介导的。这些影响会产生兴奋性和抑制性反应，并且一些（如果不是全部的话）气味可以影响膜电导的不止一个成分。本文综述了这种多样性的程度，并讨论了其对我们理解气味辨别能力的影响。
