Chemical Senses vol. 30 no. 2 © Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved.
The Number of Functional Olfactory Receptor Genes and the Relative Size of Olfactory Brain Structures Are Poor Predictors of Olfactory Discrimination Performance with Enantiomers
Department of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Goethestrasse 31, D-80336 Munich, Germany
Correspondence to be sent to: Matthias Laska, Department of Medical Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Goethestrasse 31, D-80336 Munich, Germany. e-mail: Matthias.Laska{at}med.uni-muenchen.de
The ability of four squirrel monkeys and three pigtail macaques to distinguish between nine enantiomeric odor pairs sharing an isopropenyl group at the chiral center was investigated in terms of a conditioning paradigm. All animals from both species were able to discriminate between the optical isomers of limonene, carvone, dihydrocarvone, dihydrocarveole and dihydrocarvyl acetate, whereas they failed to distinguish between the (+)- and (–)-forms of perillaaldehyde and limonene oxide. The pigtail macaques, but not the squirrel monkeys, also discriminated between the antipodes of perillaalcohol and isopulegol. A comparison of the across-task patterns of discrimination performance shows a high degree of similarity among the two primate species and also between these nonhuman primates and human subjects tested in an earlier study on the same tasks. These findings suggest that between-species comparisons of the relative size of olfactory brain structures or of the number of functional olfactory receptor genes are poor predictors of olfactory discrimination performance with enantiomers.
Key words: discrimination ability, enantiomers, nonhuman primates, olfaction
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  J. C Brookes, A.P Horsfield, and A.M Stoneham Odour character differences for enantiomers correlate with molecular flexibility J R Soc Interface, January 6, 2009; 6(30): 75 - 86. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 K. Joshi, A. Hankey, and B. Patwardhan Traditional Phytochemistry: Identification of Drug by 'Taste' Evid. Based Complement. Altern. Med., June 1, 2007; 4(2): 145 - 148. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 D. Joshi, M. Volkl, G. M. Shepherd, and M. Laska Olfactory Sensitivity for Enantiomers and Their Racemic Mixtures--A Comparative Study in CD-1 Mice and Spider Monkeys Chem Senses, September 1, 2006; 31(7): 655 - 664. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|