Specific anosmia in the laboratory mouse.

As an approach to a general theory of olfaction, different specific anosmia phenotypes characterized by different profiles of odorant sensitivities have been proposed for humans. In the present experiments, male inbred mice were tested for relative odorant sensitivity using a conditioned aversion technique and odors classified as primary or complex for humans. C57BL/6J and C57BL/10J mice appeared to be less sensitive to the primary odorant isovaleric acid than were males of seven other inbred strains (A/J, AKR/J, BALB/cJ,C3HeB/FeJ, DBA/2J, SJL/J, and SWR/J). In comparisons of C57BL/6J and AKR/J strains, the relative insensitivity of C57 to isovaleric acid did not generalize to the musklike primary odor of pentadecalactone or to the complex odor of amyl acetate. The C57BL/6J genotype may provide an animal model of a specific anosmia as characterized among humans.