A measure of smell enables the creation of olfactory metamers

Ravia, Aharon; Snitz, Kobi; Honigstein, Danielle; Finkel, Maya; Zirler, Rotem; Perl, Ofer; Secundo, Lavi; Laudamiel, Christophe; Harel, David; Sobel, Noam

doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2891-7

Cited by 56 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…A hyperbolic space provided better fits for both the volatiles and psychophysical preference data. The hyperbolic nature of the physical odor space has only been explored to date in relation to human detection (Koulakov et al, 2011;Zhou et al, 2018), although indications of hyperbolic structure were present also in earlier results (Ravia et al, 2020;Snitz et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Natural odors are typically mixtures of many different chemical compounds (Raguso, 2008). To better understand how these different odorant compounds might be perceived and processed by insects and mammals, it is very useful to work within a low-dimensional representation of odorants (Keller et al, 2017;Ravia et al, 2020;Snitz et al, 2013), where the dimensions define common physical or perceptual properties. At the same time, there is strong evidence in the olfactory system for nonlinear interactions between odors, which suggests that other types of spaces need to be evaluated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hyperbolic odorant mixtures as a basis for more efficient signaling between flowering plants and bees

Ghaninia

Knauer

Schiestl

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Animals use odors in many natural contexts, for example, for finding mates or food, or signaling danger. Analyses of natural odors search for either the most meaningful components of a natural odor mixture, or they use linear metrics to analyze the mixture compositions. Both analyses assume that the odor space itself is Euclidian, like visual and auditory spaces. However, we have recently shown that the physical space for complex mixtures is 'hyperbolic' -curved -because of the correlations that arise in biosynthetic pathways. Here we shown that the shape of the space for flowers (Brassica rapa) using an existing data set can also be better described with a hyperbolic rather than a linear shape, and that components in the space correlate to the nectar and pollen resource sought by bee pollinators. We also show that honey bee and bumble bee antennae can detect most components of the B. rapa odor space. We argue that further investigation of the implications of hyperbolic space can have important implications for how sensory systems have evolved to encode the space.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hyperbolic odorant mixtures as a basis for more efficient signaling between flowering plants and bees

Ghaninia

Knauer

Schiestl

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…No subject had a prior history of neurological or psychiatric illness or current or prior psychoactive medication use. In the personal data sheet none of the participants reported any sensorial disease and any an altered olfactory capacity neither due to a chronic condition nor due to an acute condition (e.g., cold, allergic rhinitis or variations connected to temporary aspects) (Hoenen et al, 2016(Hoenen et al, , 2017Ravia et al, 2020).…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of Social Odor and Gender-Related Differences Investigated Through the Use of Transfer Entropy and Embodied Medium

Invitto

Keshmiri

Mazzatenta

et al. 2021

Front. Syst. Neurosci.

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The perception of putative pheromones or social odors (PPSO) in humans is a widely debated topic because the published results seem ambiguous. Our research aimed to evaluate how cross-modal processing of PPSO and gender voice can affect the behavioral and psychophysiological states of the subject during a listening task with a bodily contact medium, and how these effects could be gender related. Before the experimental session, three embodied media, were exposed to volatilized estratetraenol (Estr), 5α-androst-16-en-3 α-ol (Andr), and Vaseline oil. The experimental session consisted in listening to a story that were transmitted, with a male or female voice, by the communicative medium via a Bluetooth system during a listening task, recorded through 64-active channel electroencephalography (EEG). The sense of co-presence and social presence, elicited by the medium, showed how the established relationship with the medium was gender dependent and modulated by the PPSO. In particular, Andr induced greater responses related to co-presence. The gender of the participants was related to the co-presence desire, where women imagined higher medium co-presence than men. EEG findings seemed to be more responsive to the PPSO–gender voice interaction, than behavioral results. The mismatch between female PPSO and male voice elicited the greatest cortical flow of information. In the case of the Andr–male voice condition, the trained model appeared to assign more relevance to the flow of information to the right frontotemporal regions (involved in odor recognition memory and social behavior). The Estr–male voice condition showed activation of the bilateral frontoparietal network, which is linked to cognitive control, cognitive flexibility, and auditory consciousness. The model appears to distinguish the dissonance condition linked to Andr matched with a female voice: it highlights a flow of information to the right occipital lobe and to the frontal pole. The PPSO could influence the co-presence judgements and EEG response. The results seem suggest that could be an implicit pattern linked to PPSO-related gender differences and gender voice.

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“…To deal with the resulting high-dimensional property space, the most important dimensions are usually obtained using statistical decomposition methods such as principal component analysis (e.g., [ 8 , 17 ]). The resulting physicochemical odor space can then be used to study odor similarity [ 17 , 18 ] and qualitative or hedonic properties of odors [ 3 , 8 , 16 ]. For example, Khan et al [ 8 ] were able to put novel molecules into the correct ranking of pleasantness according to their variance in the first component of the physicochemical odor space.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olfactory Perception in Relation to the Physicochemical Odor Space

Bierling

Hummel²,

Cuniberti

2021

Brain Sciences

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A growing body of research aims at solving what is often referred to as the stimulus-percept problem in olfactory perception. Although computational efforts have made it possible to predict perceptual impressions from the physicochemical space of odors, studies with large psychophysical datasets from non-experts remain scarce. Following previous approaches, we developed a physicochemical odor space using 4094 molecular descriptors of 1389 odor molecules. For 20 of these odors, we examined associations with perceived pleasantness, intensity, odor quality and detection threshold, obtained from a dataset of 2000 naïve participants. Our results show significant differences in perceptual ratings, and we were able to replicate previous findings on the association between perceptual ratings and the first dimensions of the physicochemical odor space. However, the present analyses also revealed striking interindividual variations in perceived pleasantness and intensity. Additionally, interactions between pleasantness, intensity, and olfactory and trigeminal qualitative dimensions were found. To conclude, our results support previous findings on the relation between structure and perception on the group level in our sample of non-expert raters. In the challenging task to relate olfactory stimulus and percept, the physicochemical odor space can serve as a reliable and helpful tool to structure the high-dimensional space of olfactory stimuli. Nevertheless, human olfactory perception in the individual is not an analytic process of molecule detection alone, but is part of a holistic integration of multisensory inputs, context and experience.

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A measure of smell enables the creation of olfactory metamers

Cited by 56 publications

References 36 publications

Hyperbolic odorant mixtures as a basis for more efficient signaling between flowering plants and bees

Hyperbolic odorant mixtures as a basis for more efficient signaling between flowering plants and bees

Perception of Social Odor and Gender-Related Differences Investigated Through the Use of Transfer Entropy and Embodied Medium

Olfactory Perception in Relation to the Physicochemical Odor Space

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