Odor coding in mammals much more complex than previously thought
October 26th, 2010 - 1:53 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Oct 26 (ANI): A new study has shown that the contribution of odorant receptors (ORs) to olfactory response in mammals is much more complex than previously thought, with important consequences for odorant encoding and information transfer about odorants to the brain.
ORs, which provide a system for mammals to discriminate between many different odors, form a large, diverse group of G protein-coupled receptors corresponding to around 1,000 functionally distinct receptors in rodents and 350 in humans.
Besides providing odorant specificity to olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) and contributing to ORN axon targeting, little is understood about the OR contribution to olfactory response.
Johannes Reisert, from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, now demonstrates that different odorant receptors have varying degrees of basal activity, which drives receptor current fluctuations and basal action potential firing. This basal activity can be suppressed by odorants functioning as inverse agonists.
Furthermore, odorant-stimulated olfactory receptor neurons expressing different odorant receptors can have strikingly different response patterns in the later phases of prolonged stimulation.
Thus, basal activity differences, inhibitory antagonism, and late-phase response patterns may contribute heretofore unsuspected information used by the olfactory system in categorizing odorants.
The study has been published in the Journal of General Physiology. (ANI)
- Mosquitoes use different odour sensors to track human prey - Sep 01, 2010
- Scientists unravel how nose differentiates smell - Dec 30, 2011
- A faster way to look for drugs that regenerate nerve cells - Oct 12, 2010
- Brain images can predict your video game performance - Jan 14, 2011
- Boffins identify key stem cells for eating, sex - Jul 22, 2010
- Mosquito nose transplant may help in malaria fight - Feb 16, 2010
- Memory's master switch found - Jul 30, 2010
- Fruit fly's response to starvation could help regulate human appetite - Apr 01, 2011
- Electronic 'nose' that can predict pleasantness of novel odors created - Apr 16, 2010
- New study explains how brain knows what the nose smells - Feb 05, 2011
- How neurons in the brain decide how to transmit information - Mar 26, 2011
- How mouse pups develop sense of smell to identify mother, siblings - Mar 12, 2011
- New discovery may lead to advances in treating anxiety disorders - Jan 08, 2011
- 'Light-smelling' mice may explain how we distinguish between scents - Oct 18, 2010
- Sensory wiring for odours varies among individuals - Mar 31, 2011
Tags: action potential, agonists, antagonism, diverse group, fluctuations, g protein coupled receptors, general physiology, information transfer, mammals, monell chemical senses, monell chemical senses center, odorant receptors, odorants, olfactory system, phase response, protein coupled receptors, receptor neurons, response patterns, rodents, specificity
