Odor structure-activity relationships compared in human and nonhuman primates

The ability of 4 squirrel monkeys to distinguish between members of 3 homol ogous series of substances (aliphatic alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones) was investigated, and their performance was compared with that of a group of 1 0 human participants. With all 3 substance classes, and in both species, a significant negative correlation was found between discrimination performan ce and structural similarity of odorants in terms of differences in carbon chain length. These findings suggest carbon chain length of aliphatic odora nts to be one of presumably several determinants of the interaction between stimulus molecule and olfactory receptor and support the assumption that h uman and nonhuman primates may share common mechanisms of odor quality perc eption.