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"Chemical senses"
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The hidden power of smell : how chemicals influence our lives and behavior
The main purpose of the book is to provide insight into an area that humans often take for granted. There are wonderful and exciting stories of organisms using chemical signals as a basis of a sophisticated communication system. In many instances, chemical signals can provide more detailed and accurate information than any other mode of communication, yet this world is hidden from us because of our focus on visual and auditory signals. Although we have a diversity of senses available to us, humans are primarily auditory and visual animals. These stimuli are sent to the more cognitive areas of our brain where they are immediately processed for information. We use sounds to communicate and music to excite or soothe us. Our vision provides us with communication, entertainment, and information about our world. Even though our world is dominated by other stimulus energies, we have chosen, in an evolutionary sense, either auditory or visual signals to carry our most important information. This is not the case for most other organisms. Chemical signals, mediated through the sense of smell and taste, are typically more important and are used more often than other sensory signals. The world of communication using chemicals is an alien world for us. We are unaware of how important chemical signals are to other organisms and we often overlook the influence of chemical signals in our own life. Part of this naivete about chemical signals is due to our cultural focus on visual and auditory signals, but a larger part of our collective ignorance is the lack of information about chemical communication in both popular and scientific writings. The popular press and popular writings virtually ignore the chemical senses, especially in regard to their role or influence for humans and our human culture.
Book
Chemically mediated neural and behavioral responses in early benthic juvenile Caribbean spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus
Spiny lobsters use their chemical senses to acquire resources such as shelter and food, avoid predators, and interact with conspecifics. However, little is known about if and how these responses change over developmental stages. Here, we used early benthic juvenile stage Caribbean spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus , in calcium imaging studies to investigate physiological properties of olfactory receptor neurons in the olfactory organ, i.e ., the antennules, and in behavioral studies to characterize chemically triggered responses. The basic structural organization of the antennules is similar in early benthic juvenile, older juvenile, and adult lobsters. Our calcium imaging studies show that the olfactory receptor neurons of both life stages have generally similar patterns of spontaneous activity, tuning characteristics, sensitivity, and kinetic parameters of responses to chemicals. Our behavioral studies show that early benthic juvenile spiny lobsters have similar behaviors to adults in that they produce currents following stimulation with food-related chemicals, navigate through the chemical plumes to locate the source of food-related chemicals, show alarm responses to conspecific hemolymph, and groom their antennules following stimulation with L-glutamate. Our findings suggest that features of the olfactory organ and its sensory neurons and the behavioral patterns are generally similar across developmental stages, making early benthic juvenile lobsters a favorable model for studying chemosensory transduction, coding mechanisms, and chemical-driven behaviors. The smaller scale of early benthic juvenile lobsters allows the use of compact, miniature benchtop laboratory setups, offering significant flexibility for medium-throughput basic and applied studies.
Journal Article
Chemistry and the sense of smell
\"The book provides an account of the totality of fragrance chemistry in one volume. It describes the chemistry of odorous materials, how and why they are produced in nature, how they are produced and used commercially, how they are analyzed and characterized, the chemistry of how we perceive them, and their role in our everyday lives. The final chapter reviews the major intellectual challenges for fragrance chemists and considers the future of the field\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Functional analysis of a bitter gustatory receptor highly expressed in the larval maxillary galea of Helicoverpa armigera
Many plant secondary substances are feeding deterrents for insects and play a key role in the selection of host plants. The taste sensilla of phytophagous insects contain gustatory sensory neurons sensitive to deterrents but the molecular basis of deterrent chemoreception remains unknown. We investigated the function of Gr180, the most highly expressed bitter gustatory receptor in the maxillary galea of Helicoverpa armigera larvae. Functional analyses using the Xenopus oocyte expression system and two-electrode voltage clamp revealed that the oocytes expressing Gr180 responded to coumarin. Tip recording results showed that the medial sensilla styloconica of the maxilla of fifth instar larvae exhibited electrophysiological responses to coumarin. Two-choice feeding bioassays confirmed that coumarin inhibited larval feeding. A homozygous mutant strain of H . armigera with truncated Gr180 proteins ( Gr180 −/− ) was established using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. The responses of the medial sensilla styloconica in Gr180 −/− to coumarin were almost abolished, and the responses to sinigrin and strychnine were also significantly decreased. Knockout of Gr180 alleviated the feeding deterrent effects of coumarin, sinigrin, and strychnine. Thus, we conclude that Gr180 is a receptor responding to coumarin,and also participates in sensing sinigrin and strychnine. These results enhance our understanding of the gustatory sensing mechanisms of phytophagous insects to deterrents.
Journal Article
How snakes and other animals taste the air
Snakes are often seen with their tongue sticking out. They're not being rude; they're tasting the air! Snakes use their tongue to sense the world around them. Readers discover this and more as they explore fun facts about snake senses. They also learn about other animals that taste the air, including a variety of lizards.
Book
Dogs can discriminate between human baseline and psychological stress condition odours
Previous research suggests that dogs can detect when humans are experiencing stress. This study tested whether baseline and stress odours were distinguishable to dogs, using a double-blind, two-phase, three-alternative forced-choice procedure. Combined breath and sweat samples were obtained from participants at baseline, and after a stress-inducing (mental arithmetic) task. Participants’ stress was validated with self-report and physiological measures recorded via a Biopac MP150 system. Thirty-six participants’ samples were presented to four dogs across 36 sessions (16, 11, 7 and 2 sessions, respectively). Each session consisted of 10 Phase One training trials and 20 Phase Two discrimination trials. In Phase One, the dog was presented with a participant’s stress sample (taken immediately post-task) alongside two blanks (the sample materials without breath or sweat), and was required to identify the stress sample with an alert behaviour. In Phase Two, the dog was presented with the stress sample, the same participant’s baseline sample (taken pre-task), and a blank. Which sample (blank, baseline, or stress) the dog performed their alert behaviour on was measured. If dogs can correctly alert on the stress sample in Phase Two (when the baseline sample was present), it suggests that baseline and stress odours are distinguishable. Performance ranged from 90.00% to 96.88% accuracy with a combined accuracy of 93.75% (N trials = 720). A binomial test (where probability of success on a single trial was 0.33, and alpha was 0.05) showed that the proportion of correct trials was greater than that expected by chance ( p < 0.001). Results indicate that the physiological processes associated with an acute psychological stress response produce changes in the volatile organic compounds emanating from breath and/or sweat that are detectable to dogs. These results add to our understanding of human-dog relationships and could have applications to Emotional Support and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) service dogs.
Journal Article
Psychophysics
Psychophysics: A Practical Introduction, Second Edition, is the primary scientific tool for understanding how the physical world of colors, sounds, odors, movements, and shapes translates into the sensory world of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell; in other words, how matter translates into mind.This timely revision provides a unique.
eBook
Octopus track chemosensory plumes to find food
Chemosensory plume-guided navigation, tracking a chemical plume to its source, is a primordial behavior used by many animals to search beyond the visual range. Here we report the first laboratory observations of octopuses performing this behavior, demonstrating that they can use chemosensory plumes to find food. In a three-station discrimination task carried out in the dark, octopus showed a strong preference to move upstream towards the food-baited target, supporting the hypothesis that they are performing chemosensory plume-guided search. When seeking a single baited target, also in the dark, octopuses not only preferred to move upstream towards the food source, but they also displayed characteristic motions associated with odor-gated rheotaxis, a commonly used chemosensory tracking strategy used by many animals, which includes pausing, switchbacks, and across-stream redirections to the bait. Additionally, when approaching single baited stations the octopus often made fast reactive lunging motions. The observation of these fast arm-aligned motions (FAAM), taken together with the observation that the octopus did not have a characteristic body axis orientation to the bait, as would be expected if bilaterally symmetric organs such as the olfactory organs guided this behavior, supports the hypothesis that the suckers are the primary chemosensory organs driving octopus chemosense-guided behaviors.
Journal Article
Tuft cells are key mediators of interkingdom interactions at mucosal barrier surfaces
Although tuft cells were discovered over 60 years ago, their functions have long been enigmatic, especially in human health. Nonetheless, tuft cells have recently emerged as key orchestrators of the host response to diverse microbial infections in the gut and airway. While tuft cells are epithelial in origin, they exhibit functions akin to immune cells and mediate important interkingdom interactions between the host and helminths, protists, viruses, and bacteria. With broad intra- and intertissue heterogeneity, tuft cells sense and respond to microbes with exquisite specificity. Tuft cells can recognize helminth and protist infection, driving a type 2 immune response to promote parasite expulsion. Tuft cells also serve as the primary physiologic target of persistent murine norovirus (MNV) and promote immune evasion. Recently, tuft cells were also shown to be infected by rotavirus. Other viral infections, such as influenza A virus, can induce tuft cell–dependent tissue repair. In the context of coinfection, tuft cells promote neurotropic flavivirus replication by dampening antiviral adaptive immune responses. Commensal and pathogenic bacteria can regulate tuft cell abundance and function and, in turn, tuft cells are implicated in modulating bacterial infiltration and mucosal barrier integrity. However, the contribution of tuft cells to microbial sensing in humans and their resulting effector responses are poorly characterized. Herein, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of microbial activation of tuft cells with an emphasis on tuft cell heterogeneity and differences between mouse and human tuft cell biology as it pertains to human health and disease.
Journal Article
Identification of candidate chemosensory receptors based on transcriptome analysis in the monophagous insect Protegira songi (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae)
Background
Insects perceive chemical cues from conspecifics and hosts through their sensitive chemosensory system. The chemosensory receptors, which are mainly represented by odorant receptors (ORs), ionotropic receptors (IRs), and gustatory receptors (GRs), are highly enriched in the chemosensory tissues and are crucial for perceiving and transducing chemical signals.
Results
In this study, we performed a transcriptome analysis of different tissues of Protegira songi, a notorious defoliator that specifically infests the medicinal and rubber plant Eucommia ulmoides and identified 77 candidate chemosensory receptors (50 PsonORs, 19 PsonIRs, and 8 PsonGRs). Gene expression were analyzed based on the transcriptome data. Sample relationship analysis revealed that the gene expression profiles of male and female antennae were highly correlated and formed an independent group from other tissues. Furthermore, the gene expression patterns of the antennae also showed a high degree of correlation with those of the mouthparts. PsonORs, PsonIRs, and PsonGRs are all transmembrane proteins. They exhibit high sequence divergence within their respective families, yet share high sequence identity with their orthologues in other Lepidoptera insects. Most PsonORs and PsonIRs are primarily expressed in male and female antennae, whereas mouthparts are the main sites for PsonGRs expression.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that the antennae and mouthparts are critical chemosensory organs in P. songi. PsonORs, PsonIRs, and PsonGRs exhibit typical sequence features of insect chemosensory receptors, and those highly enriched in these organs may play an important role in chemosensory perception. Furthermore, the transcriptome data presented in this study may facilitate the studies on the molecular targets for controlling this harmful pest.
Journal Article