Odor quality coding and categorization in human posterior piriform cortex

Odor-intensity coding in the anterior piriform cortex.

The primary olfactory cortex is defined as the region that receives direct fiber projection from the olfactory bulb (OB). The piriform cortex (PC) is the largest structure in the olfactory cortex. However, no ‘point to point’ anatomical connection between the OB and PC has been found (Haberly, 1998). In addition, no evidence that neurons with similar odorant preferences are located in a cluster...

Strategies for odor coding in the piriform cortex.

Dissociable Codes of Odor Quality and Odorant Structure in Human Piriform Cortex

The relationship between odorant structure and odor quality has been a focus of olfactory research for 100 years, although no systematic correlations are yet apparent. Animal studies suggest that topographical representations of odorant structure in olfactory bulb form the perceptual basis of odor quality. Whether central olfactory regions are similarly organized is unclear. Using an olfactory ...

Representations of Odor in the Piriform Cortex

Olfactory perception is initiated by the recognition of odorants by a large repertoire of receptors in the sensory epithelium. A dispersed pattern of neural activity in the nose is converted into a segregated map in the olfactory bulb. How is this representation transformed at the next processing center for olfactory information, the piriform cortex? Optical imaging of odorant responses in the ...

The role of piriform associative connections in odor categorization

Distributed neural activity patterns are widely proposed to underlie object identification and categorization in the brain. In the olfactory domain, pattern-based representations of odor objects are encoded in piriform cortex. This region receives both afferent and associative inputs, though their relative contributions to odor perception are poorly understood. Here, we combined a placebo-contr...