Selective attention controls olfaction in rodents
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Abstract Critical animal behaviors, especially among rodents, are guided by odors in remarkably well-coordinated manners. While many extramodal sensory cues compete for cognitive resources in these ecological contexts, that rodents can engage in such odor-guided behaviors suggests that they selectively attend to odors. We developed a behavioral paradigm to reveal that rats are indeed capable of selectively attending to odors in the presence of competing extramodal stimuli and found that this selective attention facilitates accurate odor-guided decisions. Further, we uncovered that attention to odors adaptively sharpens their representation among neurons in a brain region considered integral for odor-driven behaviors. Thus, selective attention contributes to olfaction by enhancing the coding of odors in a manner analogous to that observed among other sensory systems.Abstract Hearing and the sense of smell (olfaction) complement vision in gaining information about objects remote from the body. Hearing sensitivity in birds shows relatively little variation between species and sits well within the hearing capacities of young humans. Most birds have relatively poor ability to locate sounds in direction and distance. Only in owls does the accuracy of sound location match that of humans. A few highly specialized birds employ echolocation to orient themselves in the total darkness of caves. There is increasing evidence that olfaction is a key sense in birds guiding diverse behaviours across many species. Olfaction plays a key role in the location of profitable foraging locations at sea and on land, and in some species smell may be used to locate individual food items and nests. Olfaction may also play a role through semiochemicals in the recognition of species and individuals, and in mate choice.
Human echolocation
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Forebrain
Sensation
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Odor pollution has become a serious environmental problem arising from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants. But the studies on odor intensity and other olfactory evaluations are seriously influenced by the diversity, distinct concentration fluctuation and complex interaction of pollutants. In order to explore the relationship between odor intensity and components concentrations of odor mixture, several typical VOCs in indoor environment were used to simulate odor mixtures. A panel of six sensory assessors was employed to rate the odor intensities of the mixture and its unmixed components. The outcome showed that the presence of an odorant barely influenced the odor intensity of the mixture when its nature logarithm of odor activity value (OAV) was lower than 20% of the mixture's total amount. The application of this method as a pretreatment method for the odor mixture could apparently simplify the studies on odor interaction and olfactory evaluation.
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From Day 5 until Day 14 rat pups were rubbed daily with either acetophenone, ethyl benzoate, or water. Each pup was tested on Day 14 for their olfactory preferences by using four different alleyway odor combinations. The home cage odor was significantly preferred over clean wood shavings and clean shavings plus the familiar odor was significantly preferred over clean shavings plus the novel odor. The familiar odor alone was not preferred over clean shavings nor was the home-cage odor preferred over the odor of another litter's cage odor. It is suggested that with artificial odors pups are much more likely to prefer a familiar artificial odor when it is compared with a novel odor than when the familiar odor is paired with a neutral odor.
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Mammalian olfaction and reproduction are tightly linked, a link less explored in humans. Here, we asked whether human unexplained repeated pregnancy loss (uRPL) is associated with altered olfaction, and particularly altered olfactory responses to body-odor. We found that whereas most women with uRPL could identify the body-odor of their spouse, most control women could not. Moreover, women with uRPL rated the perceptual attributes of men's body-odor differently from controls. These pronounced differences were accompanied by an only modest albeit significant advantage in ordinary, non-body-odor-related olfaction in uRPL. Next, using structural and functional brain imaging, we found that in comparison to controls, most women with uRPL had smaller olfactory bulbs, yet increased hypothalamic response in association with men's body-odor. These findings combine to suggest altered olfactory perceptual and brain responses in women experiencing uRPL, particularly in relation to men's body-odor. Whether this link has any causal aspects to it remains to be explored.
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Dimethyl sulfide
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A third-party-trained “Odor Patrol” program was conducted at a school that is about a one-mile distance from a landfill to clarify the odor nuisance problems from the landfill. Every 20 min from 6 to 9 a.m. on school days, the “Odor Profile Method” (OPM) was used with the landfill odor wheel to identify the odor type and intensity of each odor type. This study showed that an Odor Patrol using the OPM can accurately define odor nuisance changes over time and can be used as a method to confirm changes of odor nuisances in a field study. The Odor Patrol only found 13 data inputs of the 1000 data inputs (1.3%) for the 100-day odor monitoring with a landfill odor or trash odor that could cause odor complaints. The Odor Patrol data and the Odor Complaint data compared well. The OPM by an “Odor Patrol” could determine the contribution of the nuisance odors from 6 to 9 a.m. at the school site, about one mile away from the landfill. The study demonstrated a novel approach for odor monitoring by using the Odor Profile Method with an Odor Patrol. The OPM not only confirmed the mitigation of a landfill odor problem, but it also determined odor character, odor intensity, odor frequency and odor duration during this study period. “Landfill gas” was determined to be primarily a rotten vegetable odor with a secondary sewery/fecal odor of lower intensity, and “trash odors” were primarily a rancid and sweet odor with a secondary sewery/fecal and/or rotten vegetable odor of lower intensities generated from trash reaching the landfill. The order of intensity observed from high to low was: Trash odor (Rancid–Sweet) > Rotten vegetable > Sewery/Fecal > Rancid. Thus, trash odor is the major problematic odor from the landfill site. Quality assurance methods were used to remove local odors from the evaluation.
Nuisance
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