IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v3y2012i1d10.1038_ncomms1712.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rats track odour trails accurately using a multi-layered strategy with near-optimal sampling

Author

Listed:
  • Adil Ghani Khan

    (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research)

  • Manaswini Sarangi

    (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
    Present address: Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India.)

  • Upinder Singh Bhalla

    (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research)

Abstract

Tracking odour trails is a crucial behaviour for many animals, often leading to food, mates or away from danger. It is an excellent example of active sampling, where the animal itself controls how to sense the environment. Here we show that rats can track odour trails accurately with near-optimal sampling. We trained rats to follow odour trails drawn on paper spooled through a treadmill. By recording local field potentials (LFPs) from the olfactory bulb, and sniffing rates, we find that sniffing but not LFPs differ between tracking and non-tracking conditions. Rats can track odours within ∼1 cm, and this accuracy is degraded when one nostril is closed. Moreover, they show path prediction on encountering a fork, wide 'casting' sweeps on encountering a gap and detection of reappearance of the trail in 1–2 sniffs. We suggest that rats use a multi-layered strategy, and achieve efficient sampling and high accuracy in this complex task.

Suggested Citation

  • Adil Ghani Khan & Manaswini Sarangi & Upinder Singh Bhalla, 2012. "Rats track odour trails accurately using a multi-layered strategy with near-optimal sampling," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 1-10, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1712
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1712
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1712
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms1712?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alyson F Brokaw & Michael Smotherman, 2020. "Role of ecology in shaping external nasal morphology in bats and implications for olfactory tracking," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-22, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1712. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.