Olfactory imprinting

Porter, R. H. and Etscom, F. (1974) Olfactory imprinting resulting from brief exposure in Acomys cahirinus. Nature 250, 732-733. 

Rabbit pups learnt an odor of their mother in one trial. This odor emanates from the belly of the dam and releases suckling. This rapid learning is considered a form of olfactory imprinting tied to an early sensitive period (Hudson and Altbacker, 1994). 

Hasler, A. D. and Scholz, A. T. (1983). Olfactory Imprinting and Homing in Salmon. New York Springer-Verlag. 

Morin, P. P., Dodson, J. J., and Dore, F. Y. (1987). Laboratoiy identification of a sensitive period for olfactory imprinting in young Atlantic salmon. American Zoologist 17, 77h. 

Muller-Schwarze, D. and Muller-Schwarze, C. (1971). Olfactory imprinting in a precocial mammal. Nature 129,55-56. 

Hasler AD, Scholz AT (1983) Olfactory imprinting and homing in salmon. Springer, New York Hubbard PC, Barata EN, Canario AVM (2002) Possible disruption of pheromonal communication... 

To conduct the critical test of the hypothesis, experiments using artificial imprinting have been performed by Hasler and his associates (Scholz et al., 1976 Hasler et al., 1978). In these experiments, fish were exposed to synthetic chemical odors in fish hatcheries at the time of smolting and later were decoyed as adults to streams scented with the same odors. This work confirmed the concept of olfactory imprinting. 

Mora and Robinson felt this observation strongly supported olfactory imprinting as proposed by Carr. These authors also felt that their observation ruled out an alternative hypothesis (Hendrickson, 1958 Owens et al., 1982) which is based on an animal learning the location of the nesting beaches as an adult. While Mora and Robinson s observation does lend itself to a chemoreception-based interpretation, we feel its primary value is to reduce vision from the status of the critical sense for homing in these animals. 

Scholz, A.T. 1980. Hormonal Regulation of Smolt Transformation and Olfactory Imprinting in Coho Salmon. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

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