Retronasal Odor Perception Requires Taste Cortex, but Orthonasal Does Not.

ABSTRACT: Smells can arise from a source external to the body and stimulate the olfactory epithelium upon inhalation through the nares (orthonasal olfaction). Alternatively, smells may arise from inside the mouth during consumption, stimulating the epithelium upon exhalation (retronasal olfaction). Both ortho- and retronasal olfaction produce highly salient percepts, but the two percepts have very different behavioral implications. Here, we use optogenetic manipulation in the context of a flavor preference learning paradigm to investigate differences in the neural circuits that process information in these two submodalities of olfaction. Our findings support a view in which retronasal, but not orthonasal, odors share processing circuitry commonly associated with taste. First, our behavioral results

SUBMITTER: Blankenship ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6604050 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature