TRANSDUCTION DIVERSITY IN OLFACTION

Odors are powerful stimuli that can focus the attention, elicit behavi ors (or misbehaviors) and even resurrect forgotten memories. These act ions are directed by the central nervous system, but they depend upon the initial transduction of chemical signals by olfactory receptor neu rons. Electrophysiological recordings suggest that the responses of ol factory receptor neurons to odors are more diverse than was initially believed, being mediated by effects on several different conductances. Both excitatory and inhibitory responses are produced by these effect s and some, if not all, odors can affect more than one component of th e membrane conductance. The extent of this diversity is reviewed here, and its impact on our understanding of odor discrimination is discuss ed.