Friday, December 07, 2007

Neural correlates of seeing and smelling

Neuroscientists at University of Leiceister are using techniques from treating epilepsy to decode neural activity that corresponds to the visual perception of a person.

Neuroscientists at Columbia University Medical Center noticed that the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (ltOFC) decreases activation after a human watches a violent movie. The ltOFC has been associated with suppression of aggression, but still no correlation to violent behavior has been demonstrated. The orbitofrontal cortex is also associated with adjusting response to a stimulus. Nature neuroscience says of the orbitofrontal cortex:

Research on primates6, 7 and humans8 with selective prefrontal lesions implicates orbitofrontal cortex in switching or reversing stimulus.response associations (and consequently response.reward associations), rather than shifting an attentional set7. Engagement of orbitofrontal cortex in inhibiting prepared motor programs is consistent with reports of ventral prefrontal activation during tasks using go/no.go response choices9 and tasks of motor selection and preparation requiring withholding of responses10. The orbitofrontal cortex has also been implicated in the interface between affect and cognition by brain imaging11, lesion12 and neurophysiology13 studies. The weight of evidence thus suggests that in the context of the infrequent invalid trials, the orbitofrontal cortex participates both in the redirection of the response based upon a violation in stimulus contingencies and in possible changes of emotional state.

And if that doesn't smell funny, maybe this does. Psychologists are noting that subliminal smells affect attraction, through an elegant experiment design: present a smell, then show a face, and have the subject rate the face.

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