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- Title
Temporal integration of nasal irritation from ammonia at threshold and supra-threshold levels.
- Authors
Wise, Paul M; Canty, Thomas M; Wysocki, Charles J
- Abstract
Two experiments examined integration of perceived irritation over short-term (approximately 100-4000 ms) delivery of ammonia into the nasal cavity of human subjects. Experiment 1 examined trade-offs between time and concentration at threshold level by means of nasal lateralization, a common measure of irritation threshold. Within experimental sessions, the duration of a fixed-concentration stimulus varied to determine the shortest, detectable pulse. Subjects could lateralize increasingly weaker concentrations with longer stimulus presentations. Experiment 2 examined an analogous trade-off for supra-threshold irritation. Subjects rated irritation from presentations of ammonia that varied both in concentration and in duration. Rated intensity for a given concentration increased with stimulus duration. Hence integration occurred at both threshold and supra-threshold levels. However, more than a twofold increase in duration was required to compensate for a twofold decrease in concentration to maintain threshold lateralization or a fixed level of perceived intensity. These results suggest that an imperfect mass-integrator model may be able to describe short-term integration of nasal irritation from ammonia at both the threshold and supra-threshold levels.
- Publication
Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology, 2005, Vol 87, Issue 1, p223
- ISSN
1096-6080
- Publication type
Journal Article
- DOI
10.1093/toxsci/kfi229