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Olfactory Communication of Sickness Cues in Respiratory Infection.

ABSTRACT: Animals detect sick conspecifics by way of body odor that enables the receiver to avoid potential infectious transmission. Human observational studies also indicate that different types of disease are associated with more or less aversive smells. In addition, body odors from otherwise healthy human individuals smell more aversive as a function of experimentally induced systemic inflammation. To investigate if naturally occurring immune activation also gives rise to perceivable olfactory changes, we collected body odor samples during two nights from individuals with a respiratory infection as well as when they were healthy. We hypothesized that independent raters would rate the body odor originating from sick individuals as smelling more aversive than when the same individuals were healthy. Even though body odor samples from sick individuals nominally smelled more intense, more disgusting, and less pleasant and healthy than the body odor from the same individuals when healthy, these effects were not statistically significant. Moreover, raters filled out three questionnaires, Perceived Vulnerability to Disease, Disgust Scale, and Health Anxiety, to assess potential associations between sickness-related personality traits and body odor perception. No such association was found. Since experimentally induced inflammation have made body odors more aversive in previous studies, we discuss whether this difference between studies is due to the level of sickness or to the type of trigger of the sickness response.

SUBMITTER: Sarolidou G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7296143 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Olfactory Communication of Sickness Cues in Respiratory Infection.

Sarolidou Georgia G Tognetti Arnaud A Lasselin Julie J Regenbogen Christina C Lundström Johan N JN Kimball Bruce A BA Garke Maria M Lekander Mats M Axelsson John J Olsson Mats J MJ

Frontiers in psychology 20200609

Animals detect sick conspecifics by way of body odor that enables the receiver to avoid potential infectious transmission. Human observational studies also indicate that different types of disease are associated with more or less aversive smells. In addition, body odors from otherwise healthy human individuals smell more aversive as a function of experimentally induced systemic inflammation. To investigate if naturally occurring immune activation also gives rise to perceivable olfactory changes, ...[more]

PMID: 32581919

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Project description:AbstractPrey strategically respond to the risk of predation by varying their behavior while balancing the tradeoffs of food and safety. We present here an experiment that tests the way the same indirect cues of predation risk are interpreted by bank voles, Myodes glareolus, as the game changes through exposure to a caged weasel. Using optimal patch use, we asked wild-caught voles to rank the risk they perceived. We measured their response to olfactory cues in the form of weasel bedding, a sham control in the form of rabbit bedding, and an odor-free control. We repeated the interviews in a chronological order to test the change in response, i.e., the changes in the value of the information. We found that the voles did not differentiate strongly between treatments pre-exposure to the weasel. During the exposure, vole foraging activity was reduced in all treatments, but proportionally increased in the vicinity to the rabbit odor. Post-exposure, the voles focused their foraging in the control, while the value of exposure to the predator explained the majority of variation in response. Our data also suggested a sex bias in interpretation of the cues. Given how the foragers changed their interpretation of the same cues based on external information, we suggest that applying predator olfactory cues as a simulation of predation risk needs further testing. For instance, what are the possible effective compounds and how they change "fear" response over time. The major conclusion is that however effective olfactory cues may be, the presence of live predators overwhelmingly affects the information voles gained from these cues.Significance statementIn ecology, "fear" is the strategic response to cues of risk an animal senses in its environment. The cues suggesting the existence of a predator in the vicinity are weighed by an individual against the probability of encounter with the predator and the perceived lethality of an encounter with the predator. The best documented such response is variation in foraging tenacity as measured by a giving-up density. In this paper, we show that an olfactory predator cue and the smell of an interspecific competitor result in different responses based on experience with a live-caged predator. This work provides a cautionary example of the risk in making assumptions regarding olfactory cues devoid of environmental context.

Project description:BackgroundMalaria control methods targeting indoor-biting mosquitoes have limited impact on vectors that feed and rest outdoors. Exploiting mosquito olfactory behaviour to reduce blood-feeding outdoors might be a sustainable approach to complement existing control strategies. Methodologies that can objectively quantify responses to odour under realistic field conditions and allow high-throughput screening of many compounds are required for development of effective odour-based control strategies.MethodsThe olfactory responses of laboratory-reared Anopheles gambiae in a semi-field tunnel and A. arabiensis females in an outdoor field setting to three stimuli, namely whole human odour, a synthetic blend of carboxylic acids plus carbon dioxide and CO(2) alone at four distances up to 100 metres were measured in two experiments using three-chambered taxis boxes that allow mosquito responses to natural or experimentally-introduced odour cues to be quantified.ResultsTaxis box assays could detect both activation of flight and directional mosquito movement. Significantly more (6-18%) A. arabiensis mosquitoes were attracted to natural human odour in the field up to 30 metres compared to controls, and blended synthetic human odours attracted 20% more A. gambiae in the semi-field tunnel up to 70 metres. Whereas CO(2) elicited no response in A. arabiensis in the open field, it was attractive to A. gambiae up to 50 metres (65% attraction compared to 36% in controls).ConclusionsWe have developed a simple reproducible system to allow for the comparison of compounds that are active over medium- to long-ranges in semi-field or full-field environments. Knowing the natural range of attraction of anopheline mosquitoes to potential blood sources has substantial implications for the design of malaria control strategies, and adds to the understanding of olfactory behaviour in mosquitoes. This experimental strategy could also be extended from malaria vectors to other motile arthropods of medical, veterinary and agricultural significance.

Dataset Information

Olfactory Communication of Sickness Cues in Respiratory Infection.

Publications

Olfactory Communication of Sickness Cues in Respiratory Infection.

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