摘要
Using a conditioning paradigm, the olfactory sensitivity of six male CD-1 mice for 鈥済reen odors鈥? a group of eight structurally related aliphatic C6 alcohols and aldehydes known to exert anxiolytic and stress-reducing effects, was investigated. With all eight stimuli, the animals discriminated concentrations 鈮?#xA0;0.03 ppm (parts per million) from the solvent, and with three of the eight stimuli the best-scoring animals were even able to detect concentrations 鈮?#xA0;0.03 ppb (parts per billion). Three female spider monkeys tested in parallel were found to detect the same eight stimuli at concentrations < 1 ppm, and with six of the eight stimuli the best-scoring animals detected concentrations 鈮?#xA0;0.1 ppm. Analysis of odor structure-activity relationships showed that in both species the type of functional group attached to the aliphatic C6 backbone of the odorant molecules systematically affected their olfactory sensitivity whereas the presence/absence of a double bond did not. In the mice, but not in the spider monkeys, the position of a double bond and the cis/trans-configuration of the odorant molecules also had a systematic effect on detectability of the 鈥済reen odors鈥? A comparison of the detection thresholds between the two species tested here and those obtained in human subjects suggests that the number of functional olfactory receptor genes is a poor predictor of a species' olfactory sensitivity for 鈥済reen odors鈥?