Je. Comettomuniz et Ws. Cain, SENSORY REACTIONS OF NASAL PUNGENCY AND ODOR TO VOLATILE ORGANIC-COMPOUNDS - THE ALKYLBENZENES, American Industrial Hygiene Association journal, 55(9), 1994, pp. 811-817
Research assessed the independent contribution of the trigeminal and o
lfactory nerves to the detection of airborne chemicals by measuring na
sal detection thresholds in subjects clinically diagnosed as lacking a
functional sense of smell (anosmics) and in matched normal controls (
normosmics). Anosmics can provide only odor-unbiased pungency threshol
ds. Normosmics provided odor thresholds. Stimuli included homologous a
lkylbenzenes (from toluene to octylbenzene), chlorobenzene, 1-octene,
and 1-octyne. As seen before with homologous alcohols, acetates, and k
etones, both types of threshold declined with increasing carbon chain
length. Anosmics failed to defect alkylbenzenes above propylbenzene. T
he strong linear correlation between pungency thresholds and saturated
vapor concentration for all tested compounds, as a whole, and the con
stancy of pungency thresholds expressed as percent of vapor saturation
, suggests that nasal pungency from these substances relies heavily on
a broadly tuned physicochemical interaction with a susceptible biopha
se within the cell membrane. Through such a nonspecific mechanism, low
, subthreshold levels of a wide variety of volatile organic compounds
of low reactivity-as found in many polluted indoor spaces-could add th
eir sensory impact to precipitate noticeable sensory irritation.