Neural processing of odors in the human brain
October 2024
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany(1)
University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany(2)
University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany(2)
This study involved patients who had been permanently implanted with electrodes in various areas of the brain (piriform cortex, amygdala, hippocampus) due to drug-resistant epilepsy. They were presented with odours while the activity of individual neurons in the brain regions was recorded at the same time. The results revealed that neurons in these areas fire in response to specific odours, encoding their identity. Repeated exposure to the same odour led to a reduction in neuron activity, highlighting central repetition suppression and habituation. Each brain region played a unique role in odour processing: the amygdala encoded emotional responses to odours, the hippocampus predicted odour identification performance, and the piriform cortex encoded the chemical structure of smells. Interestingly, some neurons also responded to both odours and images, indicating a connection between different sensory modalities. These findings offer new insights into how odours are processed in the human brain and how distinct brain regions contribute to this complex sensory experience.
Single-neuron representations of odours in the human brain
Marc Spehr(1), Florian Mormann(2)
Added on: 11-20-2024
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08016-5
