The effect of odor enrichment on olfactory acuity: Olfactometric testing in mice using two mirror-molecular pairs

Intelligent systems in nature like the mammalian nervous system benefit from adaptable inputs that can tailor response profiles to their environment that varies in time and space. Study of such plasticity, in all its manifestations, forms a pillar of classical and modern neuroscience. This study is concerned with a novel form of plasticity in the olfactory system referred to as induction. In this process, subjects unable to smell a particular odor, or unable to differentiate similar odors, gain these abilities through mere exposure to the odor(s) over time without the need for attention or feedback (reward or punishment). However, few studies of induction have rigorously documented changes in olfactory threshold for the odor(s) used for “enrichment.” We trained 36 CD-1 mice in an operant-olfactometer (go/no go task) to discriminate a mixture of stereoisomers from a lone stereoisomer using two enantiomeric pairs: limonene and carvone. We also measured each subject’s ability to detect one of the stereoisomers of each odor. In order to assess the effect of odor enrichment on enantiomer discrimination and detection, mice were exposed to both stereoisomers of limonene or carvone for 2 to 12 weeks. Enrichment was effected by adulterating the subject’s food (passive enrichment) with one pair of enantiomers or by exposing them to the enantiomers in daily operant discrimination testing (active enrichment). We found that neither form of enrichment altered discrimination nor detection. And this result pertained using either within-subject or between-subject experimental designs. Unexpectedly, our threshold measurements were among the lowest ever recorded for any species, which we attributed to the relatively greater amount of practice (task replication) we allowed our mice compared to other reports. Interestingly, discrimination thresholds were no greater (limonene) or only modestly greater (carvone) from detection thresholds suggesting chiral-specific olfactory receptors determine thresholds for these compounds. The super-sensitivity of mice, shown in this study, to the limonene and carvone enantiomers, compared to the much lesser acuity of humans for these compounds, reported elsewhere, may resolve the mystery of why the former group with four-fold more olfactory receptors have tended, in previous studies, to have similar thresholds to the latter group. Finally, our results are consistent with the conclusion that supervised-perceptual learning i.e. that involving repeated feedback for correct and incorrect decisions, rather than induction, is the form of plasticity that allows animals to fully realize the capabilities of their olfactory system.