SEPAWA® CONGRESS 2022 

Speaker: Joshi Akshita

Company: Smell and Taste Clinic

Title: Neural Associations Between Well-being and Odor Perception

Abstract: Objective- We investigated (1) neural processing underlying olfactory perception in healthy people with distinct ‘levels’ of well-being (WB) (2) central-nervous processing of odors associated with various degrees of WB. Methods- The experiment included pre-testing and fMRI scans. During pre-testing 100 subjects rated intensity, valence and WB for 14 pleasant odors. This resulted in selection of two odors (flower+ orange) strongly and two odors (grass+ coffee) weakly associated to WB which were then delivered to subjects with different WB state (high and low) in MRI. Results- In presence of odors strongly associated to WB, low WB group had increased bilateral angular gyrus (AG), left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) activity for ON>OFF. Posterior orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral IFG activated for ON (weakly associated odors) > OFF in the low WB. Left lateral OFC activated in the high WB group only in presence of strongly WB odors. For high vs low WB groups, low WB group showed stronger activity in the right AG in presence of strongly WB odors where no voxel survived for weakly odors. Conclusion- This was possibly because low WB group was more sensitive to odors that added an emotional value and meaning to them. Overall, odors may play an important role in lifting mood or altering emotional state especially in people with low WB.