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Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on March 30, 2007
Chemical Senses 2007 32(5):433-443; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjm009
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Component Information Is Preserved in Glomerular Responses to Binary Odor Mixtures in the Moth Spodoptera littoralis

Mikael A. Carlsson1,2 *, Kwok Ying Chong3 *, Wiltrud Daniels2, Bill S. Hansson2,4 {dagger} and Tim C. Pearce3 {dagger}

1 Department of Safety Pharmacology, AstraZeneca R&D Södertälje, SE-151 85 Södertälje, Sweden 2 Department of Crop Science, Division of Chemical Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, PO Box 44, SE-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden 3 Centre for Bioengineering, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK 4 Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knoell-Strasse 8, D-07745 Jena, Germany

Correspondence to be sent to: Kwok Ying Chong, Centre for Bioengineering, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. e-mail: kyc11{at}leicester.ac.uk or Mikael A. Carlsson, AstraZeneca R&D Södertälje, SE-151 85 Södertälje, Sweden. e-mail: mikael.a.carlsson{at}astrazeneca.com


  Abstract

Natural odors are often complex mixtures of different compounds. These mixtures can be perceived to have qualities that are different from their components. Moreover, components can be difficult to distinguish within a blend, even if those components are identifiable when presented individually. Thus, odor components can interact along the olfactory pathway in a nonlinear fashion such that the mixture is not perceived simply as the sum of its components. Here we investigated odor-evoked changes in Ca2+ concentration to binary blends of plant-related substances in individually identified glomeruli in the moth Spodoptera littoralis. We used a wide range of blend ratios and a range of concentrations below the level at which glomerular responses become saturated. We found no statistically significant cases where the mixture response was greater than both component responses at the same total concentration (synergistic interactions) and no statistically significant cases where the mixture response was less than either component presented individually (suppressive interactions). Therefore, we conclude that, for the plant mixtures studied, information of their components is preserved in the neural representations encoded at the first stage of olfactory processing in this moth species.

Key words: glomeruli, mixture interaction, moth, olfaction, optical imaging

* Authors contributed equally.

{dagger} Authors share joint seniority.

Accepted 9 February 2007


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