# Mammalian behavioral discrimination and neural processing of naturalistic odor plumes based on intermittency

> **NIH NIH F31** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $30,450

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Mammals use odor navigation to avoid noxious environmental dangers, find food sources, locate mates, and
escape predators- critical behaviors for survival. Odors in nature are often carried by turbulent air flow, producing
odor plumes with complex spatiotemporal structure. Intermittency is a fluid dynamics parameter that quantifies
this fluctuating nature as the fraction of time odor is present at a point within the plume. Intermittency decreases
with increased distance from an odor source and may provide important information about source proximity.
Such odor information must be sampled by animals, integrated by the olfactory system, and ultimately, drive
navigation. Mammals modulate odor sampling through sniffing, and rapid sampling can possibly support the
detection of sparse odor whiffs at low intermittency sections of a plume. In addition, olfactory sensory neurons
(OSNs) are capable of rapid response properties that are beneficial for detection of fleeting odor presentation as
well as response adaptation to persistent odor presentation that allows for detection of changes in the odor
landscape. Although dynamic odor plumes are prevalent in nature, most studies have focused on olfactory
processing of static odors. The objective of this proposal is to examine if mice can use temporal properties of
odor plumes for navigation and to determine their neurobehavioral responses to these dynamic odor sequences.
This proposal will test the hypothesis that mice can use intermittency to navigate odor plumes and that
modulation of sniffing and OSN response properties enable detection of odor presence at the plume periphery
and changes in the odor environment close to the source. In preliminary work, mice were trained on a task in
which they discriminate between odor sequences, some directly sampled from an odor plume, using
intermittency. The sampling strategies they use to perform this task are hypothesized as an increase in sniff
frequency during odor presentation at low intermittencies to detect sparse odor whiffs. This will be determined
by measuring sniff frequency during the task. Moreover, OSN responses will be quantified to test the hypothesis
that at low intermittencies, robust responses to each odor whiff are needed for intermittency discrimination (Aim
1). To define OSN response adaptation to fluctuating odors, decreases in OSN response amplitude to
consecutive odor whiffs across increasing intermittency will be quantified in mice displaying a range of sniff
frequencies (Aim 2). If navigation depends on reliable detection of odor presence at the periphery and changes
in odor environment close to the source, OSN response to low intermittency stimuli may be sensitive across
many whiffs and adaptation may only occur with high intermittency stimuli. This proposal will provide insight into
how mammals interpret olfactory information to localize essential odor sources. This work is well-aligned with
the NIDCD mission to understand t...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10140789
- **Project number:** 1F31DC018708-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Ankita Gumaste
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $30,450
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-16 → 2022-09-15

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10140789

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10140789, Mammalian behavioral discrimination and neural processing of naturalistic odor plumes based on intermittency (1F31DC018708-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10140789. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*