Search results for "odour"
showing 10 items of 42 documents
Bank vole alarm pheromone chemistry and effects in the field
2021
Chemical communication plays an important role in mammalian life history decisions. Animals send and receive information based on body odour secretions. Odour cues provide important social information on identity, kinship, sex, group membership or genetic quality. Recent findings show, that rodents alarm their conspecifics with danger-dependent body odours after encountering a predator. In this study, we aim to identify the chemistry of alarm pheromones (AP) in the bank vole, a common boreal rodent. Furthermore, the vole foraging efficiency under perceived fear was measured in a set of field experiments in large outdoor enclosures. During the analysis of bank vole odour by gas chromatograph…
Neonatal representation of odour objects: distinct memories of the whole and its parts
2014
Extraction of relevant information from highly complex environments is a prerequisite to survival. Within odour mixtures, such information is contained in the odours of specific elements or in the mixture configuration perceived as a whole unique odour. For instance, an AB mixture of the element A (ethyl isobutyrate) and the element B (ethyl maltol) generates a configural AB percept in humans and apparently in another species, the rabbit. Here, we examined whether the memory of such a configuration is distinct from the memory of the individual odorants. Taking advantage of the newborn rabbit's ability to learn odour mixtures, we combined behavioural and pharmacological tools to specifically…
Chlorine flavor perception and neutralization in drinking water
2010
For water suppliers, using chlorine is necessary to ensure water bacteriological quality from the treatment plant to the consumers’ tap. However, chlorine flavour is one of the most common reasons advocated for choosing tap water alternatives as drinking water. As a consequence, the putative link between chlorine flavour perception and tap water consumption is an issue in drinking water habits studies. Since the sensory mechanisms involved in chlorine flavour perception remained largely unknown, the main objective of this thesis work was to first highlight those mechanisms and then to identify potential lever chlorine flavour sensory neutralisation.In a first step, we demonstrated that hypo…
Differential memory persistence of odor mixture and components in newborn rabbits: competition between the whole and its parts
2014
Interacting with the mother during the daily nursing, newborn rabbits experience her body odour cues. In particular, the mammary pheromone (MP) contained in rabbit milk triggers the typical behaviour which helps to localize and seize the nipples. It also promotes the very rapid appetitive learning of simple or complex stimuli (odorants or mixtures) through associative conditioning. We previously showed that 24h after MP-induced conditioning to odorants A (ethyl isobutyrate) or B (ethyl maltol), newborn rabbits perceive the AB mixture in a weak configural way, i.e. they perceive the odour of the AB configuration in addition to the odours of the elements. Moreover, after conditioning to the m…
Does Personality Smell? Accuracy of Personality Assessments Based on Body Odour
2012
People are able to assess some personality traits of others based on videotaped behaviour, short interaction or a photograph. In our study, we investigated the relationship between body odour and the Big Five personality dimensions and dominance. Sixty odour samples were assessed by 20 raters each. The main finding of the presented study is that for a few personality traits, the correlation between self–assessed personality of odour donors and judgments based on their body odour was above chance level. The correlations were strongest for extraversion (.36), neuroticism (.34) and dominance (.29). Further analyses showed that self–other agreement in assessments of neuroticism slightly differ…
Chemosensory assessment of sperm competition levels and the evolution of internal spermatophore guarding
2006
Males of many species adjust their reproductive behaviour according to the perceived risk of sperm competition. Although this phenomenon is widespread in insects and other animals, the mechanisms that allow mates to assess sperm competition levels remain largely unexplored. In this study, we analysed the mating behaviour of pairs ofTenebrio molitorbeetles under three odour treatments representing increasing levels of sperm competition risk (SCR) and sperm competition intensity (SCI). Copula duration and male and female post-copulatory behaviour varied significantly with odour treatment. Both copula duration and post-copulatory associations (PCAs) increased significantly in odour treatments …
CHARACTERIZATION OF VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDS AND ODOUR POLLUTION IN ATMOSPHERE AT OIL AND GASOLINE HANDLING AND PROCESSING IMPACT ZONE
2019
Air quality pollution problem is still one of the crucial points for citizens in Europe for already receiving increasing attention, particularly because of the major European cities 10 and more years. Although the EU's long-term goal is to achieve levels of air quality that do not impact and risks to human health and the environment, many of member states still didn`t reach stated goals. Additionally, to gaseous pollutants, recently specific type of pollution, - odour, seems to become more important. Usually in order to determine pollution levels, national, municipal and private monitoring equipment is used. For this research municipal monitoring site in Riga (Latvia), at Milgravja Street 1…
Association between odour pollution from industrial sources and human health: a systematic review and meta-analysis
2021
Objetivo: Se realizó una revisión sistemática para sintetizar toda la evidencia disponible, de estudios epidemiológicos, sobre la asociación entre la exposición residencial u ocupacional a corto y largo plazo a la contaminación por mal olor industrial y el estado de salud de la población expuesta. Métodos: Las búsquedas bibliográficas se realizaron en OvidMedline, EMBASE y Scopus en octubre de 2018. Para la exposición, se incluyeron estudios si capturaban la exposición a un olor ambiental de origen industrial en el ámbito residencial u ocupacional. Se consideraron los resultados para los cuales había una plausibilidad biológica, como fueron sibilancias y asma, tos, cefalea, náuseas y vómito…
Cross modal interactions: way to counterbalance salt reduction in solid foods?
2008
International audience; Four model cheeses varying in texture (2 Dry Matter (DM) levels; 2 Fat/DM levels and 1 salt level) were designed and flavored with 3 commercial tasteless aromas (“Comté Cheese”, Sardine and Carrot) differently associated with salty and cheesy food products. Thirty untrained subjects were instructed to evaluate taste intensity (sourness, bitterness, saltiness and sweetness), aroma intensity, texture attributes (firmness, moistness and graininess), aroma congruency with the product and their hedonic appreciation of the 12 flavored and 4 unflavored model cheese samples. A comparison of the saltiness perception of the flavored and unflavored model cheeses revealed cross-…
Infants' hedonic responsiveness to food odours: a longitudinal study during and after weaning (8, 12 and 22 months)
2013
Abstract Background Olfaction is a highly salient sensory modality in early human life. Neonates show keen olfactory sensitivity and hedonic responsiveness. However, little is known about hedonic olfactory responsiveness between the neonatal period and 2 years of age. In an attempt to fill this gap, this longitudinal follow-up study aimed at investigating hedonic responses to food odours in infants during the first 2 years of life. The second objective was to evaluate whether gender has an influence on hedonic responses during this early period. Four control stimuli and eight odours (four rated by adults as a priori pleasant and four a priori unpleasant) were presented in bottles to 235 inf…