Skip Navigation



Chemical Senses Advance Access published online on October 23, 2008
Chemical Senses, doi:10.1093/chemse/bjn063
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
34/2/121    most recent
bjn063v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Stephenson, D.
Right arrow Articles by Halpern, B. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Stephenson, D.
Right arrow Articles by Halpern, B. P.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

No Oral-Cavity–Only Discrimination of Purely Olfactory Odorants

Dejaimenay Stephenson1 and Bruce P. Halpern1,2

1 Departments of Neurobiology and Behavior 2 Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

Correspondence to be sent to: Bruce P. Halpern, Departments of Psychology and Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. e-mail: bph1{at}cornell.edu


  Abstract

The purely olfactory odorants coumarin, octanoic acid, phenylethyl alcohol, and vanillin had been found to be consistently identified when presented retronasally but could not be identified when presented oral-cavity only (OCO). However, OCO discrimination of these odorants was not tested. Consequently, it remained possible that the oral cavity trigeminal system might provide sufficient information to differentiate these purely olfactory odorants. To evaluate this, 20 participants attempted to discriminate vapor-phase coumarin, octanoic acid, phenylethyl alcohol, and vanillin and, as a control, the trigeminal stimulus peppermint extract, from their glycerin solvent, all presented OCO. None of the purely olfactory odorants could be discriminated OCO, but, as expected, peppermint extract was consistently discriminated. This inability to discriminate clarifies and expands the previous report of lack of OCO identification of purely olfactory odorants. Taken together with prior data, these results suggest that the oral cavity trigeminal system is fully unresponsive to these odorants in vapor phase and that coumarin, octanoic acid, phenylethyl alcohol, and vanillin are indeed purely olfactory stimuli. The OCO discrimination of peppermint extract demonstrated that the absence of discrimination for the purely olfactory odorants was odorant dependent and confirmed that the oral cavity trigeminal system will provide differential response information to some vapor-phase stimuli.

Key words: human, olfaction, oral cavity, purely olfactory odorants, trigeminal

Accepted 25 September 2008


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.