Search
Presentation Details
| Poster #243 Characterizing olfactory brain responses in young infants |
| Laura Shanahan1, Leena Mithal2, Marci Messina3, Emma Office2, Lauren Wakschlag2, Patrick Seed2, Thorsten Kahnt4 1Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, United States 2Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States 3Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL, United States 4National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, MD, United States |
Odor perception plays a critical role in early human development, but the underlying neural mechanisms are not fully understood. To investigate these, we presented two appetitive and two aversive odors to infants at one month of age while recording functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and nasal airflow data. To enable MRI scanning at this early age, infants slept during odor presentation. Whole brain analyses revealed that compared to clean air, odors evoke fMRI activity in bilateral olfactory cortex (encompassing piriform cortex and amygdala) as well as thalamus. Analysis of odor-evoked fMRI responses in anatomically defined regions of interest further showed significant responses in piriform cortex, amygdala, olfactory tubercle, and entorhinal cortex, whereas no significant responses were found in anterior olfactory nucleus. Moreover, fMRI response magnitudes in piriform cortex and amygdala differed across odors. However, in contrast with prior work in adults, we did not find evidence that odor stimuli evoke discriminable fMRI activity patterns using two different multivariate pattern analysis techniques. Finally, the average inhale airflow rate was higher for appetitive odors than aversive odors, suggesting that, similar to adults, infants may modulate their respiration to reflect odor valence. Overall, these results show strong neural responses to odors at this early developmental stage and highlight nasal airflow as a behavioral metric for assessing odor preferences in infants. |