Food odor preferences

Innate and Acquired Food Odor Preferences in Garter Snakes... 

Pierce, A.A. and Ferkin, M.H. (2005) Re-feeding and the restoration of odor attractivity, odor preference, and sexual receptivity in food-deprived female meadow voles. Physiol. Behav. 84, 553-561. 

Rats learn from group members about new food sources, and clans may develop food traditions. How does one rat transmit to another this information about food. This type of intraspecific communication employs both body and foreign odors. Bennet Galef and coworkers (1985) showed that observer rats who encounter demonstrator rats with food odor on their heads will prefer that food over another when given a choice later. It is important that the food odor is on the head portion of a live rat if it is applied to the rear end of a rat or to the head of a dead rat, it has no effect (Galef and Stein, 1985). 

Le Berre, E., Atanasova, B., Langlois, D., Etievant, R, Thomas-Danguin, T. (2007). Impact of ethanol on the perception of wine odorant mixtures. Food Qual. Prefer., 18, 901-908... 

Consistent with the drastic change in food preference after metamorphosis, the expression pattern of ORs in the adult insect olfactory organ differs from that in the larval olfactory organ and also shows sexual dimorphism. In Drosophila, the adult expresses 40 ORs, 30 of which are expressed in antennae. Larvae express 25 ORs (Fishilevich et al. 2005 Kreher et al. 2005), 14 of which are larva-specific. As described below, a subset of adult-specific ORs responds to food odors, whereas ten of the 30 adult-specific ORs are specifically expressed in trichoid sensilla and are strongly inhibited or only weakly activated by food-related odors, consistent with then-purported role in pheromone rather than food detection. ORs expressed specifically at each developmental stage are likely to be essential for survival during the stage. 

The odor preferences of females were not consistent with any measurable differences in the physiological condition of control and food-deprived males. The body masses... 

If the odors from male prairie voles play a primary role in mate selection by females, then males whose odors are preferred are expected to be chosen preferentially as mates. We tested our prediction using the 17 females from the odor-preference trials in which odors from control and food-deprived males were tested. These females were then observed and videotaped while in an enclosure with an unfamiliar pair of stimulus males (i.e., control and post-weaning food-deprived). The relative attractiveness of the odors from each male in a pair, and testosterone level, had previously been determined when each pair was used as scent-donors in an odor-preference test with another female. Because exposure to a female may affect male hormone levels, we determined the testosterone level of males the day after their use in a mate-preference test (A 61 d of age). There was no consistent pattern of change in testosterone level of males after exposure to a female, so we used the testosterone levels measured after the odor preference tests (51 d of age Figure 3) for analyses of female association and mate preferences. 

The attractiveness of male odors was not correlated with the selection of males as a mate by females. Only three of the six females copulated most frequently with the male who was the preferred male in a previously-conducted odor-preference trial. One female did not copulate with either stimulus male. Two females copulated with both the control and food-deprived male, but most of these copulations were with only one of these males (i.e., the control male in one trial and the food-deprived male in another trial). The male mated with most often by three of the six females was the male with a higher level of testosterone and in three other cases the male with a lower level of testosterone was selected. 

Porcherot C., Delplanque S., Planchais A., Gaudreau N., AccoUa R. and Cayeux I. (2012) Influence of food odorant names on the verbal measurement of emotions. Food Quality and Preference 23 125-133. 

Campo, E., Ballester, J., Langlois, J., Dacremont, C. and Valentin, D. (2010), Comparison of conventional descriptive analysis and a citation frequency-based descriptive method for odor profiling An application to Burgundy Pinot noir wines, Food Qual Prefer, 21, 44-55. 

F Rousseau, C Castelain, JP Dumont. Oil water partition of odorant Discrepancy between sensory and instrumental data. Food Qual Preference 7 299-303, 1996. 

In this chapter, oifactogram is preferred to aromagram because the former is more general and the latter is restricted to a food odor. The theoretical justifications of GC- SNIF will not be discussed here [see (14)]. For techniques of aroma sampling and qualitative applications of GC-O, the reader can refer to Chapter 11. The present chapter focuses on quantitative aspects of GC-O that can be solved using GC- SNIF. To draw conclusions about its capabilities, this chapter makes a synthesis from recent studies. 

Table III. Odor preference test results when 20 candidate materials were compared with investigation time toward the familiar food odor (Purina Laboratory Rat Chow).

The nature-nurture problem revisited in most vertebrates, early experience of certain odors, interwoven with genetically anchored developmental processes, produces lasting, often irreversible odor recognition, preferences, or avoidance. Such behavioral development often occurs during more or less defined critical windows in time. The development of responses to odors often precedes that of odor production. Neonates already orient towards odors, while many pheromones are not produced until adulthood. Even before hatching or birth, the journey of chemical communication starts in the egg or the uterus. Knowing how chemical communication and chemosensoiy responses to food or danger develop is essential in areas such as animal husbandry or human behavior. 

Neonate food-naive snakes prefer odors of their natural food eastern plains GS respond to worm, leech, fish, and tadpole odors while western smooth green snakes respond to cricket odor (Burghardt, 1967) coastal neonate Thamnophis elegans respond to slugs but the inland form does not (Arnold, 1981a)... 

Particularly alarming are fetal effects of alcohol and drugs on food-related odor responses in humans. Apart from the severe fetal alcohol syndrome, alcohol can affect the chemosensory behavior of a fetus. Alcohol administered to pregnant female rats impaired odor aversions and preferences in their offspring. A... 

Newborns respond to odors by rapid breathing and activity changes. They can detect odors, rapidly develop their sensitivity over the first 4 days of life (Lipsitt etal, 1963), discriminate odor qualities and intensities, memorize odors for 1 day (and possibly for life), prefer odors they had experienced earlier, and localize odor sources (e.g. newborns aged 1 to 5.5 day olds turn away from a cotton swab with ammonia Rieser eta/., 1976). Neonates younger than 12 hours show olfactory preferences and aversions even before they experience their first food. 

Adults continue to associate new odors with pleasant and unpleasant situations in social and sex life, work and recreation, and concerning food and drink. The human patterns of odor recognition and preferences do not merely involve the olfactory nerve and its central projections. Learned associations are formed and stored in memoiy. To retrieve odor information, we need affective and cognitive components, as well as verbal descriptors. Without the latter, an odor appears familiar but cannot be labeled, the tip-of-the-nose-phenomenon (Lawless and Engen, 1977). 

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