Figure 7.

Most mitral cells respond to only a single component in an effective mixture. A, A representative mitral cell responds to only a single component (methylbenzene) in mixture 2. a1–a7, The entire mixture 2 and a single component of that mixture, methylbenzene, reliably evoke suprathreshold and subthreshold responses. The other five components fail to evoke any responses. The strength of suprathreshold activity and the magnitude of membrane potential depolarization induced by component methylbenzene in isolation are similar to those induced by the entire mixture 2. The number of stimulus presentations is given in parentheses. Conventions are as in Figure 1. B, Quantification of net membrane potential change induced by the entire mixture 2 and its individual components. ***p < 0.001, Student's t test versus mineral oil. The entire mixture 2 and its component methylbenzene induce subthreshold activity significantly larger than mineral oil, which serves as a vehicle-only control.