Cortical network and connectivity underlying hedonic olfactory perception

Objective. The emotional response to olfactory stimuli implies the activation of a complex cascade of events triggered by structures lying in the limbic system. However, little is known about how this activation is projected up to cerebral cortex and how different cortical areas dynamically interact each other. Approach. In this study, we acquired EEG from human participants performing a passive odor-perception task with odorants conveying positive, neutral and negative valence. A novel methodological pipeline integrating global field power (GFP), independent component analysis (ICA), dipole source localization was applied to estimate effective connectivity in the challenging scenario of single-trial low-synchronized stimulation. Main results. We identified the brain network and the neural paths, elicited at different frequency bands, i.e. θ (4-7Hz), α (8-12Hz) and β (13-30Hz), involved in odor valence processing. This brain network includes the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the cingulate gyrus (CgG), the superior temporal gyrus (STG), the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus (PCC/PCu) and the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG). It was analyzed using a time-varying multivariate autoregressive model to resolve time-frequency causal interactions. Specifically, the OFC acts as the main node for odor perception and evaluation of pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, whereas no specific path was observed for a neutral stimulus. Significance. The results introduce new evidences on the role of the OFC during hedonic perception and underpin its specificity during the odor valence assessment. Our findings suggest that, after the odor onset different, bidirectional interactions occur between the OFC and other brain regions associated with emotion recognition/categorization and memory according to the stimulus valence. This outcome unveils how the hedonic olfactory network dynamically changes based on odor valence.