Some like it, some do not: behavioral responses and central processing of olfactory-trigeminal mixture perception

Neural Mechanisms of Malodor Masking: A Wearable EEG Study

Olfactory neuroscience has uncovered much about the neural underpinnings of conscious olfactory evaluations, most particularly in relation to pleasantness. Past research have focused on how the brain responds to purely pleasant or unpleasant odors, leaving little known about the neural responses to the masking of known unpleasant stimuli (malodors) by pleasant stimuli. To address this, in the present study participants were exposed to malodor of high and low intensity, with and without a pleasant masking stimuli. Electroencephalography (EEG) analyses have revealed that malodor masking induces significant modulations in cortical activity over frontal, central and parietal cortex, supported primarily by θ and β frequency band oscillations, which likely represent attention and affective neural processing, while also involving δ and α band oscillations. The findings pave the way for EEG-based detection of malodor suppression, which can support the design of effective olfactory masking techniques to combat odor annoyance in domestic and public environments.

[Application research and development of objective examination of olfactory function]

The sense of smell is one of the five most primitive human sensory functions, and it plays a very important role in our daily lives. Despite numerous methods for evaluating olfactory function, there is still a lack of standardization of olfactory tests and the results are often inconsistent. Furthermore, the related research on objective evaluation started relatively late. Along with the deciphering of the olfactory pathway, the technical level of olfactory objective inspection has been greatly improved and significant progress has also been made in terms of clinical application, such as: olfactory pathway MRI and fMRI imaging, OERPs, BEAM for various olfactory disorders and early diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders, as well as related research based on bionic olfactory sensing technology. This article mainly introduces the recent research progress of several commonly used objective olfactory tests and provides reference for more accurate evaluation of olfactory function.