Measurement of human olfactory thresholds for several groups of structurally related compounds

Punter, Pieter

doi:10.1093/chemse/7.3-4.215

Cited by 101 publications

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“…This is true not only for the present data, but also for those of other researchers cited heremost notably Punter's (1983), because of its broad scope and forced-choice methodology. To the extent that testretest correlation approaches 1.0, nothing is to be gained by repeated testing.…”

Section: Correlations Among Testssupporting

confidence: 68%

“…Variability radically depends on the particular compound, for reasons that are not fully understood. For example, Punter (1983), tested a large group of young students on 58 different compounds, and found that the standard deviation of the individual thresholds (expressed in log-ppb) varied from 0.78 for toluene (lowest) to 5.31 for tetrachloromethane (highest), with a median of 2.165. To appreciate what these numbers mean and to compare them to Amoore' s summary figure of 256/1, they translate to 10/1,2,500,000/1, and 400/1 for the low, high, and median standard deviations.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A person who appears to be one of the most sensitive subjects on one day may appear to be one ofthe least sensitive on the next. This is reflected in Punter's (1983) low test-retest correlations from young subjects (18-24 years) for a subset of 11 of his 58 compounds-a median r of .40, thus accounting for only 16% of the variance. The correlations comparing subjects across compounds was also very low-median .28 of 1,081 coefficients (pairwise comparisons of 47 compounds), accounting for only 8% of the variance (i.e., a subject's relative threshold appears to be minimally consistent across compounds).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Variability of olfactory threshold and its role in assessment of aging

Stevens

Dadarwala

1993

Perception & Psychophysics

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Olfactory thresholds of elderly persons (over 65 years) average one to two orders of magnitude higher than those of young adults (under 30 years). Past studies reveal enormous spreads (typically about three orders of magnitude) of individual thresholds within each age group and extensive overlap between the two groups-enough to question how typically decline in sensitivity characterizes the individual aged person. The present study shows that much of the observed overlap is misleading, because the brief threshold tests usually administered tend to exaggerate individual differences. A more representative assessment of an individual's threshold (for Lbutanol) was achieved by averaging the thresholds from two to eight separate short tests, spread over 4 days. The spread of each group's thresholds (12 young and 12 elderly subjects) narrowed strikingly as the number of tests averaged increased from one to four; further tests accomplished no additional narrowing of spread. Based on a single test, thresholds of young and elderly overlapped in the usual way; but based on four or more tests, thresholds of young and elderly overlapped little or not at all. The outcome (1) argues that decline in smell sensitivity seems to be, after all, a common feature of aging, and (2)sheds light on the sources of variability of sensory thresholds.

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Section: Correlations Among Testssupporting

confidence: 68%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Variability of olfactory threshold and its role in assessment of aging

Stevens

Dadarwala

1993

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…Early studies found ranges between 3 to 5 orders of magnitude (Brown KS et al, 1968;Jones FN, 1957), and even 16 orders of magnitude (Yoshida M, 1984). Some results indicate that interindividual variability can differ vastly among compounds, depending on chemical structure (Punter PH, 1983;Stevens JC, Cain WS, 1987). Other results favor a picture of general (rather than odorant-specific) and small (1 to 2 orders of magnitude) interindividual differences in sensitivity (Rabin MD, Cain WS, 1986).…”

Section: Interindividual Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 96%

Human olfactory detection of homologous n-alcohols measured via concentration–response functions

Cometto‐Muñiz

Abraham

2008

Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior

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We explored in humans concentration-detection functions for the odor of the homologous n-alcohols ethanol, 1-butanol, 1-hexanol, and 1-octanol. These functions serve to establish structure-activity relationships, and reflect the pharmacology of the olfactory sense at the behavioral level. We tested groups of 14 to 17 subjects (half of them females), averaging 31 to 35 years old. An 8-station vapor delivery device (VDD8) presented the stimulus under a three-alternative forced-choice procedure against carbon-filtered air. The VDD8 was built to meet the demands of typical human sniffs in a short-term (<5 sec) olfactory detection task, and to accurately control odorant generation, delivery, and stability. Actual stimulus concentration was quantified by gas chromatography before and during testing. The functions obtained were log normally distributed and were accurately modeled by a sigmoid (logistic) function, both at the group and at the individual level. Sensitivity to ethanol was the lowest and to 1-octanol the highest. Functions became steeper with increasing carbon chain length. For all alcohols the concentration detected halfway between chance and perfect detection (threshold) was at the ppb (or nM) level. Females were slightly more sensitive than males. Intersubject variability across participants was between one and two orders of magnitude. The present odor thresholds were lower than many reported in the past but their relative pattern across alcohols paralleled that in our earlier data and in compilation studies. A previously described quantitative structure-activity relationship for odor potency holds promise to model thresholds that, like those obtained here, best reflect the intrinsic sensitivity of human olfaction.

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“…It also revealed that the terpinenes produced significantly lower thresholds (p<0.05) than the pinenes, a result in agreement with previous work (8). It has been noted that, even when study-to-study variability in reported absolute odor thresholds for the same substances can be very large (38), there is surprisingly good agreement in the relative values of odor thresholds across substances (33). In other words, given a group of compounds A,B,C, etc.…”

Section: Procedurementioning

confidence: 99%

Trigeminal and Olfactory Chemosensory Impact of Selected Terpenes

Cometto‐Muñiz

Cain

Abraham

et al. 1998

Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior

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COMETTO-MUÑIZ, J. E., W. S. CAIN, M. H. ABRAHAM AND R. KUMARSINGH. Trigeminal and olfactory chemosensory impact of selected terpenes. PHARMACOL BIOCHEM BEHAV. In Experiment 1, four normosmics and four anosmics (3 congenital, 1 idiopathic) provided odor and nasal pungency thresholds, respectively, for the following terpenes: ∆ 3 -carene, p-cymene, linalool, 1,8-cineole, and geraniol, plus the structurally-related compound cumene. Additionally, all subjects provided nasal localization (i.e., right/left) and eye irritation thresholds. Trigeminally-mediated thresholds (i.e., nasal pungency, nasal localization, and eye irritation) lay about three orders of magnitude above odor thresholds -which ranged between 0.1 and 1.7 ppm. The results implied uniform chemesthetic sensitivity across tasks and sites of impact. In Experiment 2, normosmics and anosmics provided odor and nasal pungency thresholds, respectively, for three pairs of isomeric terpenes: α-and γ-terpinene, α-and ß-pinene, and R(+)-and S(-)-limonene.Odor thresholds ranged between 1.4 and 19 ppm -that is, about an order of magnitude higher than those of the previous terpenes -with no substantial differences between odor thresholds of members of a pair. Regarding chemesthetic impact, only α-terpinene evoked nasal pungency. The overall outcome suggests comparable trigeminal chemosensitivity between nose and eyes and between normosmics and anosmics, as shown before for homologous n-alcohols. It also lends support to a previously-derived solvation model of the chemesthetic potency of airborne substances, and indicates the likely importance of certain molecular-size restrictions for effective trigeminal impact.

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Measurement of human olfactory thresholds for several groups of structurally related compounds

Cited by 101 publications

References 0 publications

Variability of olfactory threshold and its role in assessment of aging

Variability of olfactory threshold and its role in assessment of aging

Human olfactory detection of homologous n-alcohols measured via concentration–response functions

Trigeminal and Olfactory Chemosensory Impact of Selected Terpenes

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