Specificities of olfactory receptor neuron responses to amino acids in the black bullhead catfish (Ameiurus melas)

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Abstract
In vivo investigations of catfish olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) were previously limited to studying responses of spontaneously active cells. The olfactory organ, however, also contains ORNs that lack spontaneous activity and respond to amino acids. To record electrical activity of ORNs that were inactive prior to stimulation, we bathed the olfactory organ with low conductive, highly purified water that reduces shunting and enables detection of action potentials from ORNs distant to the electrode. After stimulation with amino acids, these ORNs elicited either phasic–tonic or tonic only activities. The spike frequency of the phasic activity consisted of transient frequencies up to 108 Hz that lasted 2 amino acids that included l-norvaline. In 29 of 31 neurons responding to >1 amino acid, the duration of the responses to the most stimulatory amino acid was at least double compared to that to the other amino acids. The amplitude of electro-olfactogram (EOG) correlated significantly with the number of ORNs activated by the same amino acids confirming that the EOG represents the sum of ORN receptor potentials.

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