Configural and elemental coding of natural odor mixture components in the human brain

James D. Howard; Jay A. Gottfried

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2014.10.012

Configural and elemental coding of natural odor mixture components in the human brain

James D. Howard^*, Jay A. Gottfried

^*Corresponding author for this work

Neurology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Most real-world odors are complex mixtures of distinct molecular components. Olfactory systems can adopt different strategies to contend with this stimulus complexity. In elemental processing, odor perception is derived from the sum of its parts; inconfigural processing, the parts are integrated into unique perceptual wholes. Here we used gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry techniques to deconstruct a complex natural food smell and assess whether olfactory salience is confined to the whole odor or is also embodied in its parts. By implementing an fMRI sensory-specific satiety paradigm, we identified reward-based changes in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) for the whole odor and for a small subset of components. Moreover, component-specific changes in OFC-amygdala connectivity correlated with perceived value. Our findings imply that the human brain has direct access to the elemental content of a natural food odor, and highlight the dynamic capacity of the olfactory system to engage both object-level and component-level mechanisms to subserve behavior.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	857-869
Number of pages	13
Journal	Neuron
Volume	84
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.10.012
State	Published - Nov 19 2014

Funding

This work was supported with NIH funding to J.D.H. (5F31DC013500) and to J.A.G. (R01DC010014), supplemental NIH funding to J.A.G. through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (3R01DC010014-01S1), and a Seed Grant from the Brain Research Foundation to J.A.G. (BRF SG2010-07 and SG2011-06). We would like to thank Thorsten Kahnt for providing helpful comments to the manuscript, and Katherine Khatibi for assistance in acquiring the fMRI data.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Neuroscience

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10.1016/j.neuron.2014.10.012

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abstract = "Most real-world odors are complex mixtures of distinct molecular components. Olfactory systems can adopt different strategies to contend with this stimulus complexity. In elemental processing, odor perception is derived from the sum of its parts; inconfigural processing, the parts are integrated into unique perceptual wholes. Here we used gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry techniques to deconstruct a complex natural food smell and assess whether olfactory salience is confined to the whole odor or is also embodied in its parts. By implementing an fMRI sensory-specific satiety paradigm, we identified reward-based changes in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) for the whole odor and for a small subset of components. Moreover, component-specific changes in OFC-amygdala connectivity correlated with perceived value. Our findings imply that the human brain has direct access to the elemental content of a natural food odor, and highlight the dynamic capacity of the olfactory system to engage both object-level and component-level mechanisms to subserve behavior.",

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note = "Funding Information: This work was supported with NIH funding to J.D.H. (5F31DC013500) and to J.A.G. (R01DC010014), supplemental NIH funding to J.A.G. through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (3R01DC010014-01S1), and a Seed Grant from the Brain Research Foundation to J.A.G. (BRF SG2010-07 and SG2011-06). We would like to thank Thorsten Kahnt for providing helpful comments to the manuscript, and Katherine Khatibi for assistance in acquiring the fMRI data. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2014 Elsevier Inc.",

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Configural and elemental coding of natural odor mixture components in the human brain

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