Probing the neural mechanisms that underlie each sensory system requires the presentation of perceptually appropriate stimulus concentrations. This is particularly relevant in the olfactory system as additional odorant receptors typically respond with increasing stimulus concentrations. Thus, perceptual measures of olfactory sensitivity provide an important guide for functional experiments. This study focuses on aliphatic alcohols because they are commonly used to survey neural activity in a variety of olfactory regions, probe the behavioral limits of odor discrimination, and assess odor-structure activity relationships in mice. However, despite their frequent use, a systematic study of the relative sensitivity of these odorants in mice is not available. Thus, we assayed the ability of C57BL/6J mice to detect a homologous series of primary aliphatic alcohols (1-propanol to 1-heptanol) using a head-fixed Go/No-Go operant conditioning assay combined with highly reproducible stimulus delivery. To aid in the accessibility of our data, we report the animal’s threshold to each odorant according to the 1) ideal gas condition, 2) nonideal gas condition (factoring in the activity of the odorant in the solvent), and 3) the liquid dilution of the odorant in the olfactometer. Of the odorants tested, mice were most sensitive to 1-hexanol and least sensitive to 1-butanol. These updated measures of murine sensitivity will hopefully guide experimenters in choosing appropriate stimulus concentrations for experiments using these odorants.

中文翻译：

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小鼠中脂肪族伯醇的嗅觉检测阈值。

探索每个感觉系统背后的神经机制需要呈现知觉上适当的刺激浓度。这在嗅觉系统中尤为重要，因为额外的气味受体通常会随着刺激浓度的增加而做出反应。因此，嗅觉敏感性的感知测量为功能实验提供了重要的指导。本研究侧重于脂肪醇，因为它们通常用于调查各种嗅觉区域的神经活动，探索气味辨别的行为限制，并评估小鼠的气味-结构活动关系。然而，尽管它们经常使用，但尚无关于这些气味剂在小鼠中的相对敏感性的系统研究。因此，我们使用头部固定的 Go/No-Go 操作性调节试验结合高度可重复的刺激传递，测定了 C57BL/6J 小鼠检测一系列同源脂肪族伯醇（1-丙醇到 1-庚醇）的能力。为了帮助获取我们的数据，我们根据 1) 理想气体条件、2) 非理想气体条件（考虑溶剂中气味剂的活性）和 3) 液体稀释来报告动物对每种气味剂的阈值嗅觉计中的气味剂。在测试的气味剂中，小鼠对 1-己醇最敏感，对 1-丁醇最不敏感。这些更新的小鼠敏感性测量方法有望指导实验者为使用这些气味剂的实验选择合适的刺激浓度。