Characteristics of changes of personal odor after experimental bone marrow transplantation]

In an operant conditioning paradigm 4 Balb/c inbred strain mice were conditioned to discriminate between urine samples of two other inbred strains. The purpose was to examine whether or not the known stimulus configuration during training had any effect upon the rate of recognition of other stimuli. On the basis of this procedure, we subsequently investigated the extent to which an allogeneic bone marrow transplantation interferes with the olfactory identity of an individual. For the transplants a strain was inbred which had no contact to the animals tested, a procedure used for the first time here. Furthermore, also for the first time, it was possible to demonstrate in a direct comparison, the role played by donor versus recipient characteristics on the olfactory composition of the recipients odor.