Mechanisms of Chemical Communication

化学通讯机制

• 批准号: 9222598
• 负责人: Robert Johnston
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1993
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1993-05-01 至 1995-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9222598&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mechanisms; Chemical; Communication

The general goals of this project are to understand individual recognition by scent in animals and, eventually, to use this as a way to understand the functional organization of the olfactory system in the brain as well as aspects of social memory. In this project, Dr. Johnston will investigate how animals communicate by scent. In particular, he will study a phenomenon known as scent over-marking, in which one animal deposits its scent in the same places as another. Preliminary results suggest that, by doing so, one animal can mask the information in scent deposited previously by another individual, suggesting that over-marking has competitive functions. Using golden hamsters in a variety of behavioral tests, Dr. Johnston will attempt to (1) document such competitive functions of over-marking in the social lives of animals, (2) characterize the special perceptual mechanisms that allow animals to decipher information from places that have been marked by several individuals, and (3) investigate how animals use information about individuals in such marks to guide their social behavior. These experiments have importance for at least three domains of science, and may have some practical implications as well. First, olfactory communication and scent-marking are important in the lives of most mammals, a few birds, most reptiles, some amphibians, and a huge number of invertebrates, yet we still understand little about it. This research promises entirely new insights into how animals use scent to communicate with one another and thus to regulate their social interactions. This new knowledge would help us to understand such aspects of behavior as territoriality, dominant-subordinate interactions, mate choice and competition for mates, and social recognition. Thus, it could eventually have practical implications for how to better house animals in captivity in labs and zoos, or to manage their behavior in households, and could even be helpful in wildlife management. Second, these experiments should give us new insights into the sense of smell by characterizing heretofore unsuspected sensory-perceptual abilities by which animals can extract information about one individual from complex mixtures of scent from two or more individuals. Third, the experiments will provide new knowledge and new behavioral paradigms that can be used as models for investigating the brain mechanisms underlying both the sense of smell and more general processes such as individual recognition and memory.

本项目的总体目标是了解个人 通过动物的气味进行识别，并最终将其用作 了解嗅觉功能组织的方法 以及社会记忆的各个方面。 在这 约翰斯顿博士将研究动物是如何通过 气味 他将特别研究一种被称为气味的现象 过度标记，其中一种动物将其气味沉积在同一个 地方如另一个。 初步结果表明，通过 所以一种动物可以用气味掩盖信息 以前是另一个人，这表明， 具有竞争力的功能。 利用金黄色的仓鼠 行为测试，约翰斯顿博士将尝试（1）记录这些 在社会生活中的竞争功能 动物，（2）表征特殊的感知机制， 让动物们能够破译来自于 由几个个体标记，（3）调查动物如何 使用这些标记中的个人信息来指导他们的 社会行为 这些实验至少在以下三个领域具有重要意义： 科学，也可能有一些实际意义。 首先，嗅觉交流和气味标记在 大多数哺乳动物，少数鸟类，大多数爬行动物， 两栖动物和大量的无脊椎动物，但我们仍然 我对此知之甚少。这项研究有望带来全新的 深入了解动物如何利用气味与人交流 另一个，从而调节他们的社会互动。 这个新 知识可以帮助我们理解行为的各个方面， 领域性，主从互动，配偶选择 和对配偶的竞争，以及社会认可。 因此 最终会对如何更好地 在实验室和动物园圈养动物，或管理他们的 在家庭中的行为，甚至可以帮助野生动物 管理 第二，这些实验应该给我们新的 对嗅觉的深入了解， 动物可以通过这些能力 从复杂的混合物中提取关于一个个体的信息， 两个或两个以上个体的气味。 第三，实验将 提供新的知识和新的行为模式， 用作研究大脑机制的模型， 嗅觉和更一般的过程， 个体识别和记忆。