Sensory adaptation modulates coding and the perceptual quality of odor mixtures

Sensory systems dynamically adjust their sensitivity to optimize information detection while minimizing interference. Sensory adaptation, a fundamental phenomenon across sensory modalities, temporarily reduces responsiveness during stimulus exposure and allows recovery afterward. We investigated how adaptation influences the perception of odor mixtures in honeybees, Apis mellifera. Using electroantennogram recordings, we established conditions that reliably induce adaptation at the level of olfactory receptor neurons. We then examined its effects on mixture representation in projection neurons of the antennal lobe. Adaptation significantly reduced the contribution of the adapted odor while preserving the relative strength of the non-adapted component. A behavioral conditioning protocol revealed that adaptation shifted the perceptual quality of mixtures toward the non-adapted odor. Our findings demonstrate that sensory adaptation enhances mixture segregation, facilitating the detection of low-concentration components that might otherwise be masked within complex stimuli.