Animals choose between sensory stimuli, a highly complex behavior which includes detection, discrimination, preference, and memory processes. Rodents are reported to display robust preferences for some odors, for instance, in the context of choosing among possible mates or food items. In contrast to the apparent robustness of responses toward these and other "ethologically relevant" odors, little is known about the robustness of behaviors toward odors which have no overt role in the rodent ecological niche, so-called "nonethologically relevant" odors. We developed an apparatus for monitoring the nose-poking behavior of mice and used this apparatus to explore the prevalence and stability of choices among different odors both across mice, and within mice over successive days. Mice were tested with a panel of either ethologically relevant or nonethologically relevant odors in an olfactory multiple-choice test. Significant preferences to nonethologically relevant odors were observed across the population of mice, with longer investigation durations to some odors more than to others. However, we found substantial inter-mouse variability in these responses, and that responses to these odors even varied within mice across days of testing. Tests with ethologically relevant odors revealed that responses toward these odors were also variable across mice, but within individual mice, responses were somewhat stable. This work establishes an olfactory multiple-choice test for monitoring odor investigation, choice, and preference behaviors and the application of this apparatus to assess across- and within-mouse odor-preference choice stability. These results highlight that odor preferences, as assayed by measuring choice behaviors, are variable. (PsycINFO Database Record

中文翻译：

---

嗅觉选择题测试揭示了小鼠之间和小鼠内部气味偏好的差异。

动物在感觉刺激之间进行选择，感觉刺激是一种高度复杂的行为，包括检测，辨别，偏好和记忆过程。据报道，啮齿动物对某些气味表现出强烈的偏好，例如，在可能的伴侣或食物中进行选择的情况下。与对这些气味和其他“与生态学有关的”气味的响应具有明显的鲁棒性相比，对于对在啮齿动物生态位中没有明显作用的所谓气味的鲁棒性知之甚少，所谓的“非人类学相关”的气味。我们开发了一种用于监视小鼠的鼻戳行为的设备，并使用该设备来探索小鼠之间以及连续几天内在不同气味之间进行选择的普遍性和稳定性。在嗅觉选择题测试中，对小鼠进行了一系列与伦理学相关或与非伦理学相关的气味测试。在整个小鼠群体中都发现了对非人类学相关气味的明显偏爱，对某些气味的调查时间比对其他气味的调查时间更长。但是，我们发现这些反应在小鼠之间存在很大的变异性，并且在测试的整个几天中，对这些气味的反应甚至在小鼠中也有所不同。对与行为学有关的气味进行的测试表明，对这些气味的反应在小鼠之间也各不相同，但在个别小鼠中，反应有些稳定。这项工作建立了嗅觉多项选择测试，以监控气味的调查，选择，和偏好行为，以及该设备在评估小鼠内和小鼠内气味偏好选择稳定性方面的应用。这些结果表明，通过测量选择行为来分析气味偏好是可变的。（PsycINFO数据库记录