Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on June 16, 2005
Chemical Senses 2005 30(6):505-511; doi:10.1093/chemse/bji043
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Olfactory Responsiveness to Two Odorous Steroids in Three Species of Nonhuman Primates
1 Department of Medical Psychology, University of Munich, Munich, Germany and 2 Instituto de Neuro-Etologia, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Mexico
Correspondence to be sent to: Matthias Laska, Department of Medical Psychology, University of Munich, Goethestr. 31, D-80336 Munich, Germany. e-mail: Matthias.Laska{at}med.uni-muenchen.de
Social communication by means of odor signals is widespread among mammals. In pigs, for example, the C19-steroids 5-
-androst-16-en-3-one and 5--androst-16-en-3-ol are secreted by the boar and induce the mating stance in the sow. In humans, the same substances have been shown to be compounds of body odor and are presumed to affect human behavior. Using an instrumental conditioning paradigm, we here show that squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys and pigtail macaques are able to detect androstenone at concentrations in the micromolar range and thus at concentrations at least as low as those reported in pigs and humans. All three species of nonhuman primates were considerably less sensitive to androstenol, which was detected at concentrations in the millimolar range. Additional tests, using a habituation–dishabituation paradigm, showed that none of the 10 animals tested per species was anosmic to the two odorous steroids. These results suggest that androstenone and androstenol may be involved in olfactory communication in the primate species tested and that the specific anosmia to these odorants found in 
30% of human subjects may be due to their reduced number of functional olfactory receptor genes compared with nonhuman primates.
Key words: androstenol, androstenone, nonhuman primates, olfactory detection thresholds, specific anosmia
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  M. Laska, R. M. R. Bautista, D. Hofelmann, V. Sterlemann, and L. T. H. Salazar Olfactory sensitivity for putrefaction-associated thiols and indols in three species of non-human primate J. Exp. Biol., December 1, 2007; 210(23): 4169 - 4178. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 R. M. Kaminski, H. Marini, P. I. Ortinski, S. Vicini, and M. A. Rogawski The Pheromone Androstenol (5{alpha}-Androst-16-en-3{alpha}-ol) Is a Neurosteroid Positive Modulator of GABAA Receptors J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther., May 1, 2006; 317(2): 694 - 703. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|