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The effects of cue distinctiveness on odor-based context-dependent memory.

The distinctiveness of an ambient odor was examined in relation to its success as a cue in context-dependent memory. Distinctiveness was examined in terms of both cue novelty and contextual appropriateness. Two experiments were conducted in which three different ambient odors that varied in familiarity and contextual appropriateness were manipulated at an incidental word learning encoding session and at a free recall retrieval session 48 h later. Experiment 1 revealed that when a novel ambient odor (osmanthus) was the available context cue, word recall was better than in any other condition. Further, among familiar odor cues, recall was better with a contextually inappropriate odor (peppermint) than with a contextually appropriate odor (clean fresh pine). Experiment 2 confirmed that superior word recall with osmanthus and peppermint depended on the odor cue's being available at both encoding and retrieval, and that the relation of an odor to the situational context is a key factor for predicting its effectiveness as a retrieval cue.

Analysis of Variance↗

[Determination of residual trifluralin in the herbal drug Mentha piperita L].

A HPLC/UV method was worked out to determine the residues of the herbicide trifluralin in the vegetable drug of the peppermint (M. piperita L.). The yield of the method, determined in model samples, was at least 70%, the determination limit of the method being 0.07 mg.kg-1. The content of trifluralin residues in the vegetable drug of the peppermint plant after application of the preparation Treflan 48 EC (in a dose of administration of 2 kg.ha-1) for the treatment of the growth in a small-plot experiment was below the detection limit of the analytical method.

Herbicides↗

[Influence of spiced feed additives on taste of hen's eggs].

The effect of the spices garlic (Allium sativum), extract from garlic, sage (Salvia officinalis), caraway (Carum carvi), peppermint (Mentha piperita), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), thyme (Thymus vulgaris), paprika (Capsicum annuum), marjoram (Majorana hortensis), cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) and sausage-mix fed to white hybrides on the quality of eggs (n = 705) was tested by 10 qualified persons. Changes in smell or taste were partly significant; a direct improvement is hard to induce. A well seasoned taste was obtained by feeding of garlic, fennel, peppermint and marjoram. They produce an aromatic flavor. A practical application is possible but limited by higher production prices. Further, it is uncertain if there is a need for "taste-manipulated" eggs.

Animal Feed↗

Assessment of olfactory status in allergic and non-allergic rhinitis patients.

A study undertaken to assess the olfactory acuity in allergic (group I) and non-allergic rhinitis (group II) patients in comparison with age and sex matched controls (group III). Patients presenting with atleast three of the five cardinal symptoms of rhinitis i.e. rhinorrhoea, sneezing, itching, headache and nasal obstruction were grouped as non-infective rhinitis and further divided into allergic rhinitis (group I, n = 20) and non-allergic rhinitis (group II, n = 20) based on nasal smear cytology positivity or negativity for eosinophils respectively. Detailed Ear, Nose and Throat examination was carried out in both the groups and peripheral blood samples were analysed for total, differential leukocyte and absolute eosinophil counts using standard techniques. In all the three groups the olfactory thresholds for 5 odorants i.e. musk (M), formalin (F), camphor (C), asafoetida (A, 10% aqueous solution) and oil of peppermint (P, 20%) were evaluated for testing musky, pungent, camphorous, putrid and minty odours respectively by the method described by Elsberg and Levy for quantitative olfactometry. The results indicated elevation of olfactory thresholds (delta %, calculated taking control values as 100%) for 4 or 5 odorants in group I and group II patients respectively as compared with controls (group I: delta % for P--89.6%; M--116.4%; A--55.8%; P < 0.001; C--73.1%; P < 0.02; F--26.6% N.S.; group II: P--96.9%; M--99.3%, P < 0.01 for both; A--66.8%; C--102.7%, P < 0.001; F--42%, P < 0.05). In the non allergic rhinitis group the magnitude of the olfactory loss was more severe except for the odorant musk. Further interpretations as per gender based specificities revealed more severe olfactory loss in males of both the groups for the odorants peppermint and musk and moderately severe olfactory loss for formalin and camphor as compared to females. However, for the odorant asafoetida females showed greater olfactory loss than males in both the groups (delta % 73.38% versus 52% in group I and 81.29% versus 69.7% in group II).

Adult↗

Minimal olfactory perception during sleep: why odor alarms will not work for humans.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine olfactory arousal threshold during sleep in comparison to an auditory tone. DESIGN: On night 1, participants rated odor intensity when awake and experienced olfactory stimuli during stage 1 sleep. Night 2 involved stage 2, stage 4, and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep trials using the "staircase" threshold-detection method. Electroencephalogram, electrooculogram, electromyogram, electrocardiogram, and respiration were recorded along with behavioral response. An 800-Hz tone was given on trials when odors failed to arouse. SETTING: Participants slept in individual rooms. Stimulus-delivery systems were operated from a separate room, where an experimenter observed physiologic recordings and behavioral responses. PARTICIPANTS: Three healthy men and 3 women aged 20 to 25 years (mean, 22 years). INTERVENTIONS: Two odorants, peppermint and pyridine, at 4 concentrations were presented through nasal cannulas using an air-dilution olfactometer. Tones were played over a speaker. MEASUREMENTS: Behavioral (button press and oral) responses, electroencephalographic activation, and changes in breathing and heart rate were assessed. RESULTS: Participants responded to odors on 92% of stage 1 sleep trials. Peppermint was ineffective in stages 2, 4, and REM sleep. Pyridine produced behavioral threshold on 45% of stage 2 trials, none in stage 4, and one third of REM sleep trials. Tones were effective on at least 75% of trials. Heart rate increased significantly only following behavioral responses to odors or tones across sleep stages. CONCLUSIONS: The data indicate that human olfaction is not reliably capable of alerting a sleeper.

Adult↗

Histamine intolerance-like symptoms in healthy volunteers after oral provocation with liquid histamine.

Histamine in food at non-toxic doses has been proposed to be a major cause of food intolerance causing symptoms like diarrhea, hypotension, headache, pruritus and flush ("histamine intolerance"). Histamine-rich foods such as cheese, sausages, sauerkraut, tuna, tomatoes, and alcoholic beverages may contain histamine up to 500 mg/kg. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over study in 10 healthy females (age range 22-36 years, mean 29.1 +/- 5.4) who were hospitalized and challenged on two consecutive days with placebo (peppermint tea) or 75 mg of pure histamine (equaling 124 mg histamine dihydrochloride, dissolved in peppermint tea). Objective parameters (heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, peak flow) as well as a total clinical symptom score using a standardized protocol were recorded at baseline, 10, 20, 40, 80 minutes, and 24 hours. The subjects received a histamine-free diet also low in allergen 24 hours before hospitalization and over the whole observation period. Blood samples were drawn at baseline, 10, 20, 40, and 80 minutes, and histamine and the histamine-degrading enzyme diamine oxidase (DAO) were determined. After histamine challenge, 5 of 10 subjects showed no reaction. One individual experienced tachycardia, mild hypotension after 20 minutes, sneezing, itching of the nose, and rhinorrhea after 60 minutes. Four subjects experienced delayed symptoms like diarrhea (4x), flatulence (3x), headache (3x), pruritus (2x) and ocular symptoms (1x) starting 3 to 24 hours after provocation. No subject reacted to placebo. No changes were observed in histamine and DAO levels within the first 80 minutes in non-reactors as well as reactors. There was no difference in challenge with histamine versus challenge with placebo. We conclude that 75 mg of pure liquid oral histamine--a dose found in normal meals--can provoke immediate as well as delayed symptoms in 50% of healthy females without a history of food intolerance.

Administration, Oral↗

Fungistatic action of natural oils and fatty acids on dermatophytic and saprophytic fungi.

Testing the inhibitory effects of some natural oils and fatty acids on growth of some of the dermatophytes revealed the high fungistatic effects of clove and peppermint oils. These oils when applied at 1% concentration with 1% tween 80 inhibited growth of the tested fungi seriously. Fatty acids were relatively uneffective and the possibility of including clove and peppermint oils in antidermatophytic drugs were suggested.

Arthrodermataceae↗

Growth and survival of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in some aromatic waters.

The ability of some aromatic waters at the in-use concentrations to enhance or inhibit the growth of microorganisms was determined by the antimicrobial preservative challenge method. Anise, chloroform, cinnamon, clove, dill, lemon, peppermint and rose waters were challenged with Ps. aeruginosa. Levels of the surviving cells at different times were determined by the pour plate method. The antimicrobial effect of the corresponding undiluted aromatic oils against Ps. aeruginosa was determined by the cup-plate method. Results showed that cinnamon water possesses profound and useful preservative activity against Ps. aeruginosa. The inhibitory effect of anise, chloroform and rose waters on Ps. aeruginosa is not much pronounced. Similarly, clove, dill and peppermint waters exhibited no significant preservative actions. Lemon water was found to enhance the growth of Ps. aeruginosa. The survival pattern of Ps. aeruginosa in the majority of the aromatic waters conforms with the antimicrobial actions of their undiluted oils.

Drug Contamination↗

[Ecological imprinting and protein biosynthesis. Experiments with Drosophila melanogaster Meigen].

According to the "host selection principle", butterflies and other herbivorous insects preferentially lay their eggs on those plant races that they fed on when young. This is also true for karpophagic and parasitic insects. The selection of specific chemical conditions could be either inherited or acquired. If learned information determines host selection, we have a case of imprinting, as a) reception and use of the information are not simultaneous, b) there is no reward. In experiments with Drosophila melanogaster we marked the egg deposition medium with ethanol, acetic acid, peppermint oil, or benzaldehyd. The flies spontaneously prefer mediums with ethanol and acetic acid, and reject peppermint oil and benzaldehyd. If they are reared in one of these media, the preference for it is increased, or the rejection rate lowered. Rearing with actinomycin C neutralizes the effect of the other markers. It is concluded that actinomycin C blocks imprinting on the egg deposition substrate in Drosophila melanogaster.

Acetates↗

Enhancing effect of essential oils on the penetration of 5-fluorouracil through rat skin.

Three essential oils as penetration enhancers for 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) were studied using excised rat skin. The oils used were eucalyptus, peppermint and turpentine. Azone was used for comparison. The enhancing effect of the oils was found to be less than that of azone, but all the oils used enhanced the permeation of 5-FU. Eucalyptus oil was found to be the most active, causing about 60 fold increase, while peppermint and turpentine caused 46 and 28 fold increase, respectively. Eucalyptus oil was further studied by grading it into 5 fractions according to difference in boiling points. It was found that their activities increased as their boiling point increased. With all enhancers increased partition coefficients were observed but the diffusion coefficient values obtained were comparatively higher. The mode of action of these accelerants may be described by combined processes of partition and diffusion, the diffusion process being dominant.

Administration, Cutaneous↗

Dopamine release during ethanol drinking in AA rats.

The dopamine overflow in the nucleus accumbens of rats from the high alcohol drinking AA line was measured by microdialysis before, during, and after one-half hour sessions of cued drinking of ethanol flavored with saccharin and peppermint or, as a control, saccharin-peppermint drinking. The animals had had extensive previous experience with ethanol drinking. Self-administration of the ethanol solution did not raise the dopamine level substantially: there was a small (17%) but significant increase only during the first 10 min after the onset of drinking. Giving the rats a cue for ethanol, which was part of their daily routine drinking regime, did not raise the dopamine level before ethanol was presented to the rats (i.e., during "anticipation"). The results are consistent with our previous studies showing a lack of a large ethanol-induced dopamine response in rats with previous experience of drinking ethanol and with the idea that although dopamine may play some role in alcohol drinking, it is not the central substrate producing the reinforcement from ethanol in AA rats.

Alcohol Drinking↗

Studies on the mode of action of the essential oil of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia P. Miller).

Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia, P. Miller) is used in aromatherapy as a holistic relaxant and is said to have carminative, antiflatulence and anticolic properties. Its sedative nature, on inhalation, has been shown both in animals and man. Lavender has a spasmolytic activity on guineapig ileum and rat uterus in vitro and it also decreases the tone in the skeletal muscle preparation of the phrenic nerve-diaphragm of rats. As the mechanism of action has not been studied previously, the spasmolytic activity was studied in vitro using a guinea-pig ileum smooth muscle preparation. The mechanism of action was postsynaptic and not atropine-like. The spasmolytic effect of lavender oil was most likely to be mediated through cAMP, and not through cGMP. The mode of action of linalool, one of lavender's major components, reflected that of the whole oil. The mode of action of lavender oil resembled that of geranium and peppermint oils.

Animals↗

The effects of water-odor preference conditioning in the preadolescent nucleus accumbens septi.

The mesolimbic dopamine (DA) pathway is critical in reward-mediated behavior. Water, sucrose, and drugs of abuse all increase DA in the nucleus accumbens septi (NAcc) in adult animals. Recently our laboratory has shown that cocaine and alcohol increase DA efflux in preadolescent animals. The present study used a natural reinforcer (i.e., water) at postnatal day 25 (PND 25) to determine the sensitivity and responsiveness of this pathway. Repeated pairing of a peppermint odor with water resulted in a behavioral odor preference and an odor-elicited increase in accumbal DA. Results show that this developing pathway is functional and responsive to conditioning using a natural reinforcer and that these behavioral and neurochemical responses can be conditioned to a previously novel environmental stimulus.

3,4-Dihydroxyphenylacetic Acid↗

Examining the role of endogenous opioids in learned odor-stroke associations in infant rats.

Maternal touch profoundly regulates infant neural and behavioral development, and supports learned odor associations necessary for infant attachment. Endogenous opioids are well characterized to mediate the calming and analgesic properties of maternal touch; yet their role in learned odor-touch associations is unknown. We administered naltrexone, an opioid receptor antagonist, before or immediately following classical conditioning with peppermint odor and tactile stimulation (stroking) in rat neonates. Results indicate odor-stroke conditioning produces odor preferences facilitated by endogenous opioids during acquisition and memory consolidation. These results provide additional evidence for the modulatory role of opioids in neonate learning and memory. Disturbances to this system may alter the impact of touch on infant development, particularly in the realm of learning necessary for attachment.

Animals↗

Dissociation of behavioral and neural correlates of early associative learning.

Wistar rat pups were trained in an olfactory associative conditioning task on postnatal Day 6, 12, or 20. The training consisted of 20 pairings of a novel odor (peppermint) with footshock (1.5 mA, 1 s) with an intertrial interval of 3 min. Additional pups were trained in either unpaired or naive control conditions. On the day following training, pups were either tested for their behavioral response to the conditioned odor in a two-odor choice test, or injected with 14C-2-deoxyglucose and exposed to the odor for examination of olfactory bulb neural responses to the odor. The results demonstrate that, although pups at all ages learned to avoid the odor, only pups trained during the first postnatal week had a modified olfactory-bulb glomerular-layer response to the odor. These results suggest that although olfactory memory is correlated with modification of olfactory bulb glomerular layer function in newborns, these changes are not required for normal memory in older pups.

Aging↗

Modulatory effects of Mentha piperita on lung tumor incidence, genotoxicity, and oxidative stress in benzo[a]pyrene-treated Swiss albino mice.

Mentha piperita or peppermint is currently used for alleviating nausea, flatulence, and vomiting. In the present investigation, we evaluated the chemopreventive, antigenotoxic, and antioxidative effects of an aqueous extract of Mentha piperita leaves. One-day-old Swiss albino mice were treated with a single subcutaneous injection of 0.5 mg benzo[a]pyrene (BP) and then given either water or a Mentha extract (ME; 1 g/kg body weight) by gavage starting at 3 weeks of age (weaning). The mice were killed at 9 weeks of age and tested for lung tumor incidence (chemoprevention); bone marrow micronucleus and chromosome aberration frequency (antigenotoxicity); and levels of liver and lung sulfhydral groups, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activity, and lipid peroxidation (LPO) (antioxidative properties). The ME treatment resulted in a significant reduction in the number of lung adenomas from an incidence of 67.92% in animals given only BP to 26.31%, an inhibition of 61.26%. Tumor multiplicity was 1.22 in the BP-alone group and 1.15 in the BP + ME group. In addition, compared with the animals in the BP-alone group, ME reduced the frequency of chromosomal aberrations and micronuclei in bone marrow cells and decreased the levels of LPO and increased reduced glutathione content, and SOD and CAT activities in liver as well as lung. The results of this study indicate that ME is chemopreventive and antigenotoxic when given subsequent to an initiating dose of BP in newborn Swiss albino mice. The chemopreventive action and antigenotoxic effects observed in the present study may be due to the antioxidative properties of ME.

Adenoma↗

Liquid-phase microextraction utilising plant oils as intermediate extraction medium--towards elimination of synthetic organic solvents in sample preparation.

Hollow fibre based liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) using fatty oils and essential oils as the organic phase was evaluated to develop sample preparation technology eliminating the use of hazardous organic solvents. Basic drugs were extracted from different aqueous samples (0.2 to 1 mL) through approximately 15 microL of either almond oil, arachis oil, olive oil, soy-bean oil, anise oil, fennel oil, lavender oil, or peppermint oil (organic phase) immobilised within the pores of a polypropylene hollow fibre and into 20 microL of 10 mM HCOOH (acceptor phase) present inside the lumen of the hollow fibre. The extraction performance of the essential oils was comparable with the solvents normally used in LPME (dihexyl ether, n-octanol, and dodecyl acetate) in terms of extraction recovery and extraction speed. Whereas all essential oils tested were compatible with human urine, only anise oil was successful for plasma. The fatty oils provided lower recoveries than the essential oils due to higher viscosity, but all the fatty oils were compatible both with urine and plasma samples. In spite of the multi-component nature of the oils tested, they were not found to seriously contaminate the acceptor phases during extraction. In conclusion, fatty oils and essential oils may serve as alternative organic phase in LPME, eliminating the use of hazardous organic solvents.

Mentha piperita↗

The use of botanicals for health purposes by members of a prepaid health plan.

Interviews were conducted with 100 adults (27 men, 73 women) enrolled in a prepaid medical health plan to investigate their use of botanical remedies. They were asked which of 50 listed herbs they or members of their families had used for health purposes and with what effect; which of 60 listed health problems they had treated with home remedies; and what additional home remedies or alternative health care resources they had used. Over 100 different home remedies were identified, with most considered effective. Individual respondents used from 0 to 33 herbal and plant remedies (Md = 7), some of which have toxic properties. A remedy was reported for almost every health problem listed. Substances most frequently used were aloe vera, honey, peppermint, garlic, eucalyptus, and rose hips; health problems most frequently treated were burns, colds, indigestion, insect bites, insomnia, rashes. Persons who were married, from larger households, of higher socioeconomic status, who had consulted alternative healers, or who had patronized health food stores tended to use home remedies more than their counterparts. Implications for further evaluation of self-care practices are discussed.

Adult↗