Configural perception of 6-odorant mixtures in newborn rabbits and human adults

International audience

Perceptual interactions in complex odour mixtures: The blending effect

Perceptual interactions in complex odour mixtures: The blending effect. 13. Weurman flavour research symposium

The perception of olfactory mixtures: Two strategies

The perception of olfactory mixtures: Two strategies. Color and odor workshop

Odour mixture processing: from birth to adulthood

International audience

Modelling analysis of centroid curves of olfactory habituation in humans

Indexation en cours.; International audience; Previously published experiments established the time-course of olfactory habituation in humans, and extracted 3 centroid curves from clustering analysis that reflected high, middle and low habituation. The aim of the current theoretical study was to further analyse these previous experimental data by developing a mathematical modelling analysis designed for fitting the 3 curves from a general equation. After adjusting equation parameters for each curve, fitting equation outcomes on experimental data yielded high correlation coefficients of 0.9997 – 0.9995 – 0.9962, respectively. A model-based interpretation of olfactory-habituation centroid cur…

Perceptual Interactions in Complex Odor Mixtures

The perception of everyday odors relies on elemental or configural processing of complex mixtures of odorants. Theoretically, the configural processing of a mixture could lead to the perception of a single specific odor for the mixture; however, such a type of perception has hardly been proven in human studies. Here, we report the results of a sorting task demonstrating that a six-component mixture carries an odor clearly distinct from the odors of its components. These results suggest a blending effect of individual components’ odors in mixtures containing more than three odorants.

In silico study of correspondences between odors descriptions linked to common features of aromas compounds

The first step of odor detection and discrimination of structurally diverse odorants depends of their interactions with olfactory receptors (ORs) [1], whereas the perception of odors quality results from a combinatorial coding [2], whose identification still remains a major challenge. Recently, Martinez-Mayorga et al. demonstrated that odor description can be successfully analyzed using a metric approach by performing a descriptive analysis of the Flavor Base database (http://www.leffingwell.com, version 2010) [3]. The current version Flavor Base (9th edition, 2013) is one of the largest collections of flavor molecules (4226 molecules). We extracted 3508 molecules for which the described od…

Capacités olfactives face à des odeurs alimentaires et non-alimentaires chez des adultes de statuts pondéraux différents

Introduction et but de l’etude L’olfaction est un sens intrinseque a la prise alimentaire. En tant que determinant des choix alimentaires, sa relation avec l’obesite est encore mal comprise a ce jour. En effet, des etudes montrent que les capacites olfactives (detection et identification) sont plus faibles chez les individus en obesite (Peng, 2019) que chez les individus normo-ponderaux. D’autres auteurs ont montre au contraire que les individus en obesite pouvaient avoir une sensibilite accrue aux indices olfactifs alimentaires (Stafford, 2015). L’objectif de cette etude etait d’evaluer les capacites olfactives globales d’individus normo-ponderaux (N), en surpoids (S) et en obesite (O) fac…

Perception and processing of odor mixtures

Perception and processing of odor mixtures. Olfaktologie / Gustologie

Perception of odour mixtures: the next challenge in flavour analysis.

Short paper dans conférence.; International audience; The olfactory dimension of food flavour is critical to the food identity and typicality. Food odour and aroma result from the processing of complex mixtures of volatile compounds activating the sense of smell. The perceptual properties of odour mixtures have been explored from both the aroma analysis point of view and the psychophysical point of view, thus revealing perceptual effects such as masking, synergy, or perceptual blending. However, considering odorants separately, the classical aroma analysis approach misses the central role of perceptual integration in odour mixture processing. Therefore, the challenge of food flavour analysi…

Effets de l'expérience sur la perception de mélanges odorants chez l'Homme adulte et le lapereau nouveau-né

Poster présenté

Pre-exposure to odour mixture modifies the perceptual quality of the components

International audience

Techniques EEG et IRM pour l’étude de la flaveur chez l’humain

Understanding the odor mixture

International audience

Configural vs. elemental processing of complex odour mixtures in newborn rabbits

National audience

Chapter 5 - Perceptual interactions in complex odor mixtures: the blending effect

Perceptual interactions in odour mixtures: The blending effect

The odour perceived from a mixture of odorants varies depending on several factors as the context, individual physiological abilities, experience… but also as the perceptual interactions occurring over the processing of odorant mixtures. Sometimes, these interactions which appear during odour information coding and processing, lead to synergy or masking of odour notes (1). In other occasions, they lead to a blending effect. Odour blending appears when a mixture is perceived as a unique odour different from the odour of its components (1, 2). This type of mixture is well known by perfumers and flavourists who daily construct and use it in an empirical fashion. Here, we conducted a series of …

Experience influences elemental and configural perception of certain binary odour mixtures in newborn rabbits.

SUMMARY Elemental and configural olfactory perception allows interaction with the environment from very early in life. To evaluate how newborn rabbits can extract and respond to information from the highly complex chemical surroundings, and how experience acts on this sensory, cognitive and behavioural capability, we ran a study in four steps including a total of eight experiments. We mainly used a binary AB mixture comprising ethyl isobutyrate (component A) and ethyl maltol (component B), previously shown as a bearer of blending properties; in rabbit pups (as in human adults), the mixture elicits a weak configural perception, i.e. the perception of a configural odour different from the odo…

Habituation and adaptation to odors in humans

indexation en cours; Habituation, or decreased behavioral response, to odors is created by repeated exposure and several detailed characteristics, whereas adaptation relates to the neural processes that constitute this decrease in a behavioral response. As with all senses, the olfactory system continually encounters an enormous variety of odorants which is why mechanisms must exist to segment them and respond to changes. Although most olfactory habitation studies have focused on animal models, this non-systematic review provides an overview of olfactory habituation and adaptation in humans, and techniques that have been used to measure them. Thus far, psychophysics in combination with moder…

The perception of odor objects in everyday life: a review on the processing of odor mixtures

International audience; Smelling monomolecular odors hardly ever occurs in everyday life, and the daily functioning of the sense of smell relies primarily on the processing of complex mixtures of volatiles that are present in the environment (e.g., emanating from food or conspecifics). Such processing allows for the instantaneous recognition and categorization of smells and also for the discrimination of odors among others to extract relevant information and to adapt efficiently in different contexts. The neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning this highly efficient analysis of complex mixtures of odorants is beginning to be unraveled and support the idea that olfaction, as vision and au…

Olfactory configural and elemental abilities in adults with autism

Olfactory configural and elemental abilities in adults with autism. Clinical chemosensation 2014

Multidisciplinary approach to explore interactions in odor mixture perception

Odors and aromas perceived in food and in the environment result from the processing of complex chemical mixtures of volatile compounds that should be efficiently processed by the olfactory system. It is known for decades that this processing generates perceptual interactions, such as masking, synergy, or perceptual blending, which contribute to elaborating a synthetic brain representation of the chemical information. Nevertheless, the perceptual processes underlying these interactions are still poorly known. In this project, we set out a multidisciplinary approach to identify the characteristics of odorants and olfactory receptors (ORs) that could support perceptual interactions. We hypoth…

Structure-activity evidences in olfactory habituation and recovery

New determinants of olfactory habituation

AbstractHabituation is a filter that optimizes the processing of information by our brain in all sensory modalities. It results in an unconscious reduced responsiveness to continuous or repetitive stimulation. In olfaction, the main question is whether habituation works the same way for any odorant or whether we habituate differently to each odorant? In particular, whether chemical, physical or perceptual cues can limit or increase habituation. To test this, the odour intensity of 32 odorants differing in physicochemical characteristics was rated by 58 participants continuously during 120s. Each odorant was delivered at a constant concentration. Results showed odorants differed significantl…

Dissimilarity of blending mixture in an olfactory space

Dissimilarity of blending mixture in an olfactory space. Human chemosensation meeting

Impact d’un amorçage olfactif sur le traitement cérébral d’images d’aliments chez des adultes normo-pondéraux, en surpoids, et obèses

National audience

Towards an understanding of odor blending in odorant mixtures: a pharmacophore approach

National audience; Odors we perceived in our environment are mainly the result of mixtures of odorants. The first step of odor perception is an interaction between these odorant mixtures and olfactory receptors. The corresponding transduced olfactory signals, conveyed by olfactory sensory neurons, are then processed by the brain (Zou et al. 2006). In previous studies, we investigated the perception of a mixture including specific proportions of ethyl isobutyrate (strawberry-like odor) and ethylmaltol (caramel-like odor). This specific mixture was especially judged as more typical of a pineapple odor than the individual components (Coureaud et al. 2008, Le Berre et al. 2008, Coureaud et al. …

Is the superior temporal sulcus involved in the reinforced configural processing of a binary odor mixture?

Is the superior temporal sulcus involved in the reinforced configural processing of a binary odor mixture?. 35. annual meeting - association for chemoreception sciences (AChemS)

Evidence of peripheral olfactory adaptation

Newborn rabbits perceive odour mixtures elementally or configurally according to theri experience

Features of multicomponent odour mixtures leading to blending effect in humans

International audience

Multimodal interactions

Revue; International audience; Introduction A central sensory characteristic of food is its flavor, which, most of the time, confers to a given food product its identity and typicality, and thus contribute to its liking (Prescott, 2015). Flavor has been defined as a sensory percept induced by food or beverage tasting. This holistic perception is constructed through the functional integration of information transmitted by the chemical senses: olfaction, gustation, and oral and nasal somatosensory inputs (Thomas-Danguin, 2009). Flavor may be influenced by other nonchemical sensory inputs such as texture, sound, or color (Spence, 2013). The functional integration of information transmitted by …

Perception de mélanges d'odorants, étude psychophysique et comportementale chez l'Homme et le mammifère nouveau-né

Perception de mélanges d'odorants, étude psychophysique et comportementale chez l'Homme et le mammifère nouveau-né. Sens & Co PhD

Impact of pre-exposure on the perception of odorant mixtures in humans

International audience

Is the superior temporal sulcus involved in the reinforced configural processing of a binary odor mixture?

Is the superior temporal sulcus involved in the reinforced configural processing of a binary odor mixture?. 35. annual meeting - association for chemoreception sciences (AChemS)

Perception analytique et synthétique des mélanges d’odorants : études combinées chez le lapereau nouveau-né et l’Homme adulte

National audience

Brain mechanisms of aroma perception and odour-induced taste enhancement