Evidence that the Sweetness of Odors Depends on Experience in Rats
Evidence that the Sweetness of Odors Depends on Experience in Rats
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DOI：
10.1093/chemse/bjq075
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发表时间：
2010-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Verhagen, Justus V.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gautam, Shree Hari;Verhagen, Justus V.
人类根据味道质量来描述他们对某些气味剂的感知（例如，甜的）。还发现，在人类中，新的气味可以快速且不可逆地获得一种味道，甚至在与一种味道进行单一配对之后。目前还不清楚一般的风味对象，特别是气味-味道概括，是否是经验依赖的。相互作用可能是由于人类未能充分分析复合香料的嗅觉和味觉成分而导致的。在这里，我们测试了大鼠的气味-味道概括，有或没有成对暴露于气味剂和促味剂。我们评估了大鼠条件性气味厌恶对促味剂的泛化作用。我们的研究结果表明，大鼠的行为pupelessless鼻后气味，好像他们是甜的，只有在先前配对的经验，气味与甜味剂。这些数据支持这样的假设，即气味的味道性质是后天习得的，而不是天生的。此外，本研究结果表明，通过气味获得味觉质量不需要依赖于更高的认知能力。本研究有助于建立大鼠作为味觉行为神经科学研究的模型。
Humans describe their perception of certain odorants in terms of taste qualities (e.g., sweet). It has also been found that in humans, novel odorants can rapidly and irreversibly acquire a taste, even after just a single pairing with a taste. It remains unclear whether flavor objects in general, and odor-taste generalizations in particular, are experience-dependent. Interactions might result from a failure by humans to sufficiently analyze the olfactory and gustatory components of compound flavorants. Here, we tested odor-taste generalizations in rats with or without paired exposure to an odorant and a tastant. We evaluated the generalization of conditioned odor aversion to tastants by rats. Our findings suggest that rats behave toward putatively tasteless retronasal odorants as if they were sweet only after prior paired experience of the odorant with a sweet tastant. These data support the hypothesis that taste-like qualities of odors are learned and are not innate. Furthermore, the present results suggest that acquisition of a taste quality by an odor need not depend on higher cognitive abilities. This study helps to establish the rat as a model for the study of behavioral neuroscience of flavor.