A technique was developed for obtaining odor psychophysical data from pigeons. Each pigeon was phyically restrained so that its beak was held within the stimulus air steam and it was required to make one response in the presence of odor and another in the presence of clean air. Absolute thresholds to amyl acetate were between 10('-3.4) and 10('-3.6) of vapor saturation for each of three pigeons tested. / Following the determination of absolute threshold the olfactory nerves were bilaterally sectioned in each animal, and each was tested after this operation in an attempt to monitor the return of olfactory sensitivity due to reconstitution of the olfactory nerve. One pigeon regained preoperative levels of sensitivity within 20 days. Another pigeon showed nearly complete recovery 10 weeks after sectioning, after which its threshold increased by approximately .7 log unit and remained stable at this level. A third pigeon failed to exhibit any postoperative odor-air discrimination during 99 days of testing. / These results demonstrate that normal behavioral sensitivity to an odorant is possible with reconstituted nerves and that the recovery process following nerve sectioning may occur in less than three weeks. Possible explanations are given for the high degree of variability found across subjects. This study represents an initial step toward quantifying the relationship between the degree replacement of olfactory axons with reconstitution and the degree of recovery of specific olfactory capacities. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-05, Section: B, page: 1967. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74199 |
| Contributors | WALKER, JAMES CORNELIUS., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 126 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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