Abstract
Odor detection applications are needed by human societies in various circumstances. Rodent offers unique advantages in developing biologic odor detection systems. This report outlines a novel apparatus designed to train maximum 5 mice automatically to detect odors using a new olfactory, relative go no-go, operant conditioning paradigm. The new paradigm offers the chance to measure real-time reliability of individual animal’s detection behavior with changing responses. All of 15 water-deprivation mice were able to learn to respond to unpredictable delivering of the target odor with higher touch frequencies via a touch sensor. The mice were continually trained with decreasing concentrations of the target odor (n-butanol), the average correct percent significantly dropped when training at 0.01% solution concentration; the alarm algorithm showed excellent recognition of odor detection behavior of qualified mice group through training. Then, the alarm algorithm was repeatedly tested against simulated scenario for 4 blocks. The mice acted comparable to the training period during the tests, and provided total of 58 warnings for the target odor out of 59 random deliveries and 0 false alarm. The results suggest this odor detection method is promising for further development in respect to various types of odor detection applications.
Highlights
Detection tasks[9,18,19,22], but their tiny body size is both an advantage and a disadvantage, for their lifespan is shorter and weaker than rodents and need more refined reward control settings
The existing training paradigms could not meet the challenges of application: First of all, in the natural detection situation an odor cue comes and goes at any time, but the odor in these experimental situations was initiated by the animal
The existing operant conditioning paradigms were designed for research rather than application, so it reasonably results in the use of uniform training parameters in despite of individual difference, which might be at the expense of optimal training efficiency when aiming at application use
Summary
Detection tasks[9,18,19,22], but their tiny body size is both an advantage and a disadvantage, for their lifespan is shorter and weaker than rodents and need more refined reward control settings. ‘go no-go’, ‘left or right’ (2AC), ‘escape or not escape’), the reliability could be guaranteed only if working animal numbers were enlarged (for example, in the BioExplorers detection system, they used “three concealed cartridges, each of which houses eight mice”) or the animals were severely trained to behave ideally, since animal’s fluctuation of motivation, attention extent, etc., could hardly be eliminated, so the ideal performance of animal might be traded off with reduced training efficiency. The odor detection task needs multiple animals working together to function as a stable unit, and none of the published methods was set up for simultaneously training of multiple rodents In another perspective, the existing operant conditioning paradigms were designed for research rather than application, so it reasonably results in the use of uniform training parameters in despite of individual difference, which might be at the expense of optimal training efficiency when aiming at application use. A novel apparatus and operant conditioning paradigm was designed as a training module for 5 mice to conduct odor detection such that the requirements of reliable odor detection can be better met, with the intention that its further application could be modified to meet the needs of odor detection, while reducing the limitations of current animal detection models
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