Presentation Details
Response to Mixtures of Odorants in a Given Olfactory Receptor/Response Cell Depends on the "Efficacy Ratio" of the Individual Odorants.

Jonathan Drover1, Hong Elizabeth2, O'Connell Tom2.

1Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA.2Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA

Abstract


We developed a dynamic model of olfactory reception of mixtures of odorants using linear differential equations. The basic model has four components – unbound (no odorant bound), spontaneously active (no odorant bound, active anyway), bound to an odorant, and bound activation.  We present two primary findings. First, we can effectively model the response of individual olfactory response neurons to mixtures of odorants, and we demonstrate using calcium imaging data of multiple neurons responding to a pair of odors in varying combinations. These data include inhibitory and excitatory contributions of individual odorants. Second, the nature of the olfactory response to a mixture (inhibitory or excitatory) depends on the “efficacy ratios” of the specific receptor odorant pair and the spontaneous activation properties of the cell. We establish conditions, in terms of the model parameters, that classify the odorant as an excitatory addition to a preexisting mixture (increases the level of activation), or an inhibitory one (reduces the level of activation). It is a feature of the model that an odorant that reduces activity when added to one mixture might increase activity if added to another. The label inhibition/ excitation is not fixed for a given odorant but depends on what it is mixed with. We define the efficacy ratio as the ratio of activated bound locations to un-activated bound locations, and we propose that this ratio determines how a given odorant will change the response when added to a mixture.

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