Olfactory discrimination of structurally related molecules: receptor cell responses to camphoraceous odorants.

Electrophysiological investigations of the selective sensitivity of receptor cells have shown that odorants could be distributed into groups according to the profiles of responses that they elicited from a population of receptor cells. As the concept of odorant group plays an important role in the understanding of olfactory coding, an attempt was made to investigate in detail the group properties of a number of structurally and qualitatively related molecules: 1,8 cineole, DL-camphor, borneol, iso-borneol, adamantane, fenchone, fenchyl alcohol, 3,3,5-tri-methyl cyclohexanone, camphene, 1,1,2,2-tetra-bromoethane. These odorants, along with several other representatives of other odorant groups, were utilized to stimulate a set of 71 individually recorded receptor cells. Factor analysis of electrophysiological data demonstrated that the grouping of odorants with camphor could be predicted on the basis of the shape and size of the molecules. The analysis also showed that even a clearly defined odorant group such as the camphor group is not likely to be determined by a single type of receptor site.