ISSN:
1432-1351
Keywords:
anduca sexta
;
Olfaction
;
Pheromones
;
Temporal coding
;
Adaptation
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
Notes:
Summary We investigated the ability of pheromone-sensitive olfactory receptors of male Manduca sexta to respond to 20-ms pulses of bombykal, the major component of the conspecific pheromonal blend. Isolated pulses of bombykal elicited a burst of activity which decreased exponentially with a time constant of 160–250 ms. Trains of pulses delivered at increasing frequencies (0.5–10 Hz) elicited temporally modulated responses at up to 3 Hz. Concentration of the stimulus (1, 10, 100 ng per odor source) had a marginal effect on the temporal resolution of the receptors. Within a train, the responses to individual pulses remained constant, except for 10-Hz trains (short-term adaptation). A dose-dependent decline of responsiveness was observed during experiments (long-term adaptation). Although individual neurons may not respond faithfully to each pulse of a train, the population of receptors sampled in this study appears to be capable of encoding the onset of odor pulses at frequencies of up to at least 3 Hz.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00194583
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