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1. Effects of reproductive status on behavioral and neural responses to isolated pup stimuli in female California mice

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2023.114727  

   Wilson, Kerianne M.; Arquilla, April M.; Hussein, Manal; Rosales-Torres, Kelsey M.; Chan, May G.; Saltzman, Wendy (October 2023, Behavioural Brain Research)

   The transition to motherhood in mammals is marked by changes in females’ perception of and responsiveness to sensory stimuli from infants. Our understanding of maternally induced sensory plasticity relies most heavily on studies in uniparental, promiscuous house mice and rats, which may not be representative of rodent species with different life histories. We exposed biparental, monogamous California mouse (Peromyscus californicus) mothers and ovariectomized virgin females to one of four acoustic and olfactory stimulus combinations (Control: clean cotton and white noise; Call: clean cotton and pup vocalizations; Odor: pup-scented cotton and white noise; Call + Odor: pup-scented cotton and pup vocalizations) and quantified females’ behavior and Fos expression in select brain regions. Behavior did not differ between mothers and ovariectomized virgins. Among mothers, however, those exposed to the Control condition took the longest to sniff the odor stimulus, and mothers exposed to the Odor condition were quicker to sniff the odor ball compared to those in the Call condition. Behavior did not differ among ovariectomized virgins exposed to the different conditions. Fos expression differed across conditions only in the anterior hypothalamic nucleus (AHN), which responds to aversive stimuli: among mothers, the Control condition elicited the highest AHN Fos and Call + Odor elicited the lowest. Among ovariectomized virgin fe- males, Call elicited the lowest Fos in the AHN. Thus, reproductive status in California mice alters females’ behavioral responses to stimuli from pups, especially odors, and results in the inhibition of defense circuitry in response to pup stimuli. 

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2. Behavioral discrimination and olfactory bulb encoding of odor plume intermittency

   https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85303  

   Gumaste, Ankita; Baker, Keeley L; Izydorczak, Michelle; True, Aaron C; Vasan, Ganesh; Crimaldi, John P; Verhagen, Justus (March 2024, eLife)

   In order to survive, animals often need to navigate a complex odor landscape where odors can exist in airborne plumes. Several odor plume properties change with distance from the odor source, providing potential navigational cues to searching animals. Here, we focus on odor intermittency, a temporal odor plume property that measures the fraction of time odor is above a threshold at a given point within the plume and decreases with increasing distance from the odor source. We sought to determine if mice can use changes in intermittency to locate an odor source. To do so, we trained mice on an intermittency discrimination task. We establish that mice can discriminate odor plume samples of low and high intermittency and that the neural responses in the olfactory bulb can account for task performance and support intermittency encoding. Modulation of sniffing, a behavioral parameter that is highly dynamic during odor-guided navigation, affects both behavioral outcome on the intermittency discrimination task and neural representation of intermittency. Together, this work demonstrates that intermittency is an odor plume property that can inform olfactory search and more broadly supports the notion that mammalian odor-based navigation can be guided by temporal odor plume properties. 

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3. Behavioral discrimination and olfactory bulb encoding of odor plume intermittency

   https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.crjdfn387  

   Verhagen, Justus; Gumaste, Ankita (April 2024, Dryad)

   In order to survive, animals often need to navigate a complex odor landscape where odors can exist in airborne plumes. Several odor plume properties change with distance from the odor source, providing potential navigational cues to searching animals. Here, we focus on odor intermittency, a temporal odor plume property that measures the fraction of time odor is present at a given point within the plume and decreases with increasing distance from the odor source. We sought to determine if mice are capable of using changes in intermittency to locate an odor source. To do so, we trained mice on an intermittency discrimination task. We establish that mice can discriminate odor plume samples of low and high intermittency and that the neural responses in the olfactory bulb can account for task performance and support intermittency encoding. Modulation of sniffing, a behavioral parameter that is highly dynamic during odor-guided navigation, affects both behavioral outcomes on the intermittency discrimination task as well as neural representation of intermittency. Together, this work demonstrates that intermittency is an odor plume property that can inform olfactory search and more broadly supports the notion that mammalian odor-based navigation can be guided by temporal odor plume properties. 

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4. Hemipteran defensive odors trigger predictable color biases in jumping spider predators

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78952-5  

   Vickers, Michael E.; Taylor, Lisa A. (December 2020, Scientific Reports)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Multimodal warning displays often pair one signal modality (odor) with a second modality (color) to avoid predation. Experiments with bird predators suggest these signal components interact synergistically, with aversive odors triggering otherwise hidden aversions to particular prey colors. In a recent study, this phenomenon was found in a jumping spider ( Habronattus trimaculatus ), with the defensive odor from a coreid bug ( Acanthocephala femorata ) triggering an aversion to red. Here, we explore how generalizable this phenomenon is by giving H. trimaculatus the choice between red or black prey in the presence or absence of defensive odors secreted from (1) eastern leaf-footed bugs ( Leptoglossus phyllopus , Hemiptera), (2) grass stinkbugs ( Mormidea pama , Hemiptera), (3) Asian ladybird beetles ( Harmonia axyridis , Coleoptera), and (4) eastern lubber grasshoppers ( Romalea microptera , Orthoptera). As expected, in the presence of the hemipteran odors, spiders were less likely to attack red prey (compared to no odor). Unexpectedly, the beetle and grasshopper odors did not bias spiders away from red. Our results with the hemipteran odors were unique to red; follow-up experiments indicated that these odors did not affect biases for/against green prey. We discuss our findings in the context of generalized predator foraging behavior and the functions of multimodal warning displays. 

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5. Walking Drosophila navigate complex plumes using stochastic decisions biased by the timing of odor encounters

   https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.57524  

   Demir, Mahmut; Kadakia, Nirag; Anderson, Hope D; Clark, Damon A; Emonet, Thierry (November 2020, eLife)

   null (Ed.)

   When walking along a city street, you might encounter a range of scents and odors, from the smells of coffee and food to those of exhaust fumes and garbage. The odors are swept to your nose by air currents that move scents in two different ways. They carry them downwind in a process called advection, but they also mix them chaotically with clean air in a process called turbulence. What results is an odor plume: a complex ever-changing structure resembling the smoke rising from a chimney. Within a plume, areas of highly concentrated odor particles break up into smaller parcels as they travel further from the odor source. This means that the concentration of the odor does not vary along a smooth gradient. Instead, the odor arrives in brief and unpredictable bursts. Despite this complexity, insects are able to use odor plumes with remarkable ease to navigate towards food sources. But how do they do this? Answering this question has proved challenging because odor plumes are usually invisible. Over the years, scientists have come up with a number of creative solutions to this problem, including releasing soap bubbles together with odors, or using wind tunnels to generate simpler, straight plumes in known locations. These approaches have shown that when insects encounter an odor, they surge upwind towards its source. When they lose track of the odor, they cast themselves crosswind in an effort to regain contact. But this does not explain how insects are able to navigate irregular odor plumes, in which both the timing and location of the odor bursts are unpredictable. Demir, Kadakia et al. have now bridged this gap by showing how fruit flies are attracted to smoke, an odorant that is also visible. By injecting irregular smoke plumes into a custom-built wind tunnel, and then imaging flies as they walked through it, Demir, Kadakia et al. showed that flies make random halts when navigating the plume. Each time they stop, they use the timing of the odor bursts reaching them to decide when to start moving again. Rather than turning every time they detect an odor, flies initiate turns at random times. When several odor bursts arrive in a short time, the flies tend to orient these turns upwind rather than downwind. Flies therefore rely on a different strategy to navigate irregular odor plumes than the ‘surge and cast’ method they use for regular odor streams. Successful navigation through complex irregular plumes involves a degree of random behavior. This helps the flies gather information about an unpredictable environment as they search for the source of the odor. These findings may help to understand how other insects use odor to navigate in the real world, for example, how mosquitoes track down human hosts. 

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