每个人的气味喜恶偏好很大程度上由个人经历和文化决定，不过法国研究人员最近发现，人和小鼠具有相似的嗅觉偏好，并以此推论出嗅觉也在部分程度上是由气味分子引起的生化反应先天决定的。
法国科学研究中心的科研人员日前在美国《公共科学图书馆·综合》（PLoS ONE）网络期刊上发表了相关研究报告。报告说，同样的东西不同的人闻起来会有很大差别，比如法国人闻起来香气诱人的卡芒贝尔干酪，对于其他国家的人来说可能就有一种怪味。不过研究人员还认为，嗅觉固然深受文化等因素的影响，但也可能与客观的物体气味分子有关联。
为了证明这一猜想，研究人员准备了同样气味的物品，让人和小鼠逐一嗅闻。参与实验的人被要求按照气味喜好程度排列顺序；对于实验小鼠，科研人员则将它们在不同物品前停留的时间作为主要衡量标准。结果发现，人和小鼠对于气味的偏好基本一致，如都比较喜爱一种名为香叶醇的物质的味道，而对焦煳味则“敬而远之”。
研究人员由此认为，在部分程度上，嗅觉偏好也是由客观的物体气味分子引起的生化反应先天决定的。他们将继续研究，希望探明神经系统与气味偏好之间的关系。
研究人员建议食品加工业等在研发新产品时将动物的感觉也作为参考标准之一。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PLoS ONE，doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004209，Nathalie Mandairon，Anne Didier
Humans and Mice Express Similar Olfactory Preferences
Nathalie Mandairon*, Johan Poncelet, Moustafa Bensafi#, Anne Didier#
Université Lyon 1, CNRS, UMR5020, Neurosciences Sensorielles, Comportement, Cognition, Lyon, France
Abstract
In humans, the pleasantness of odors is a major contributor to social relationships and food intake. Smells evoke attraction and repulsion responses, reflecting the hedonic value of the odorant. While olfactory preferences are known to be strongly modulated by experience and learning, it has been recently suggested that, in humans, the pleasantness of odors may be partly explained by the physicochemical properties of the odorant molecules themselves. If odor hedonic value is indeed predetermined by odorant structure, then it could be hypothesized that other species will show similar odor preferences to humans. Combining behavioral and psychophysical approaches, we here show that odorants rated as pleasant by humans were also those which, behaviorally, mice investigated longer and human subjects sniffed longer, thereby revealing for the first time a component of olfactory hedonic perception conserved across species. Consistent with this, we further show that odor pleasantness rating in humans and investigation time in mice were both correlated with the physicochemical properties of the molecules, suggesting that olfactory preferences are indeed partly engraved in the physicochemical structure of the odorant. That odor preferences are shared between mammal species and are guided by physicochemical features of odorant stimuli strengthens the view that odor preference is partially predetermined. These findings open up new perspectives for the study of the neural mechanisms of hedonic perception.
