当前位置:科学网首页 > 小柯机器人 >详情
科学家通过测量气味实现嗅觉异构体的创造
作者:小柯机器人 发布时间:2020/11/15 0:49:36

以色列魏茨曼科学研究所Noam Sobel、Aharon Ravia等研究人员合作通过测量气味实现嗅觉异构体的创造。2020年11月11日,《自然》杂志在线发表了这项成果。

研究人员表示,波长是光的物理度量,它与感知颜色的联系创建了感知实体(例如,同分异构体),这些互不重叠的光谱成分会生成相同的颜色感知。相比之下,科学家们无法开发出一种与感知到的气味相关的物理量度,甚至不能仅仅反映出气味剂之间的感知相似程度。
 
为了生成这样的度量,研究人员收集了来自199位参与者的49,788对匹配的气味感知相似性估计,这些参与者闻到242种不同的多组分气味,并使用这些数据完善了将气味结构与气味感知联系起来的预测模型。所得的度量将异嗅物质的21个理化特征组合为一个单一值(以弧度表示),该值准确地预测了多组分异嗅物质对之间感知相似的程度。为了评估该度量的有效性,研究人员调查了是否可以使用它来创建嗅觉异构体。
 
为此,研究人员首先确定了该标准的一个临界点:彼此之间在0.05弧度或更小弧度以内的多组分异嗅物质对很难区分。使用此临界值,研究人员能够设计嗅觉异构体,即成对的非重叠分子组成,它们产生相同的气味感知。感知相似性的准确预测以及随后嗅觉异构体的产生表明,研究人员获得了一种有效的嗅觉量度,可以使气味数字化。
 
附:英文原文

Title: A measure of smell enables the creation of olfactory metamers

Author: Aharon Ravia, Kobi Snitz, Danielle Honigstein, Maya Finkel, Rotem Zirler, Ofer Perl, Lavi Secundo, Christophe Laudamiel, David Harel, Noam Sobel

Issue&Volume: 2020-11-11

Abstract: Wavelength is a physical measure of light, and the intricate understanding of its link to perceived colour enables the creation of perceptual entities such as metamers—non-overlapping spectral compositions that generate identical colour percepts1. By contrast, scientists have been unable to develop a physical measure linked to perceived smell, even one that merely reflects the extent of perceptual similarity between odorants2. Here, to generate such a measure, we collected perceptual similarity estimates of 49,788 pairwise odorants from 199 participants who smelled 242 different multicomponent odorants and used these data to refine a predictive model that links odorant structure to odorant perception3. The resulting measure combines 21 physicochemical features of the odorants into a single number—expressed in radians—that accurately predicts the extent of perceptual similarity between multicomponent odorant pairs. To assess the usefulness of this measure, we investigated whether we could use it to create olfactory metamers. To this end, we first identified a cut-off in the measure: pairs of multicomponent odorants that were within 0.05 radians of each other or less were very difficult to discriminate. Using this cut-off, we were able to design olfactory metamers—pairs of non-overlapping molecular compositions that generated identical odour percepts. The accurate predictions of perceptual similarity, and the ensuing creation of olfactory metamers, suggest that we have obtained a valid olfactory measure, one that may enable the digitization of smell.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2891-7

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2891-7

期刊信息

Nature:《自然》,创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团,最新IF:43.07
官方网址:http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接:http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html