Odors: from chemical structures to gaseous plumes

• Published in: Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews Vol. 111; pp. 19 - 29
• Main Authors: Young, Benjamin D., Escalon, James A., Mathew, Dennis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2020
• Subjects: Animals; Behavior, Animal - physiology; Chemical Phenomena; Gases; Odor identity; Odor plume; Odor receptor; Odorants; Olfaction; Olfactory Perception - physiology; Olfactory quality; Smell - physiology; Spatial Navigation - physiology; Odor identity; Odor receptor; Olfactory quality; Olfaction; Odor plume
• ISSN: 0149-7634; 1873-7528
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.01.009

•To account for natural odor perception more research needs to be conducted to account for the perception of the odor plume.•The components of an odorant mixture affect odor quality, yet it is unclear how this scales from receptor transduction to odorous plumes.•For successful navigation the odor plume is represented as a spatiotemporal entity beyond its constituent odorants and concentration gradients.•Odorant properties in an odor plume determine odor identity with respect to odor quality.•We suggest using microchemical variations, such as isotopic or isotopomer variations within the composition of the plume for further research. We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity.