Abstract
Mammalian olfactory systems have extraordinary ability to sense and identify various trace odorants. Taking advantages of cell culture and micro-fabrication technologies, olfactory cell- or tissue-based biosensor represent a promising platform for in vitro odorant detection. However, in vitro conditions lead to shortened cell/tissue survivals, and the working life of neuron chips is short. The purpose of this study is to develop an in vivo recording and analyzing method for long-term and repeatable detection of odor stimulation. In this study, we implanted penetrating micro-wire array electrode into the olfactory bulb of conscious rats to obtain odor-evoked electrophysiological activities. Then, we investigated the response of ensembles of mitral/tufted cells to stimulation with carvone at a number of concentrations in time and frequency domains. The stable, repeatable odorant responses from up to 16 neural regions could be obtained for at least 3 weeks. Further, we explored the concentration detection sensitivity limitation of developed method, and found the detection low limit of carvone was below 10−10 mol/L. The result demonstrates that the concentration range of in vivo odorant detection method is much wider than in vitro method.
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This work was supported by the National Key Basic Research Program of China (2009CB320303) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81027003, 60725102).
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Zhuang, L., Hu, N., Tian, F. et al. A high-sensitive detection method for carvone odor by implanted electrodes in rat olfactory bulb. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 29–37 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-013-0044-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-013-0044-1