Differences in peripheral sensory input to the olfactory bulb between male and female mice

Female mammals generally have a superior sense of smell than males, but the biological basis of this difference is unknown. Here, we demonstrate sexually dimorphic neural coding of odorants by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs), primary sensory neurons that physically contact odor molecules in the nos...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2017-04, Vol.7 (1), p.45851-45851, Article 45851
Main Authors: Kass, Marley D., Czarnecki, Lindsey A., Moberly, Andrew H., McGann, John P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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631/378/2624/1703
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639/624/1107/510
Aroma compounds
Females
Hormones
Humanities and Social Sciences
Males
multidisciplinary
Neural coding
Neurophysiology
Nose
Olfaction
Olfactory bulb
Olfactory receptor neurons
Olfactory stimuli
Olfactory system
Rodents
Science
Sensory evaluation
Sensory neurons
Sex hormones
Sexual dimorphism
Smell
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Summary:Female mammals generally have a superior sense of smell than males, but the biological basis of this difference is unknown. Here, we demonstrate sexually dimorphic neural coding of odorants by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs), primary sensory neurons that physically contact odor molecules in the nose and provide the initial sensory input to the brain’s olfactory bulb. We performed in vivo optical neurophysiology to visualize odorant-evoked OSN synaptic output into olfactory bub glomeruli in unmanipulated (gonad-intact) adult mice from both sexes, and found that in females odorant presentation evoked more rapid OSN signaling over a broader range of OSNs than in males. These spatiotemporal differences enhanced the contrast between the neural representations of chemically related odorants in females compared to males during stimulus presentation. Removing circulating sex hormones makes these signals slower and less discriminable in females, while in males they become faster and more discriminable, suggesting opposite roles for gonadal hormones in influencing male and female olfactory function. These results demonstrate that the famous sex difference in olfactory abilities likely originates in the primary sensory neurons, and suggest that hormonal modulation of the peripheral olfactory system could underlie differences in how males and females experience the olfactory world.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep45851