Our food choices and consumption behaviours are often influenced by odour hedonics,
especially in the case of those orthonasally experienced aromas (that is, those odours that …

Highlights•We consider whether sensory areas directly maintain population codes of
valence.•Brain imaging evidence suggests some valence representations are not shared …

Humans share sensory systems with a common anatomical blueprint, but individual sensory
experience nevertheless varies. In olfaction, it is not known to what degree sensory …

Qualitative olfactory dysfunction is characterized as distorted odor perception and can have
a profound effect on quality of life of affected individuals. Parosmia and phantosmia …

One major unresolved problem in olfaction research is to relate the percept to the molecular
structure of stimuli. The present study examined this issue and showed for the first time a …

The functional basis of disgust in disease avoidance is widely accepted; however, there is
disagreement over what disgust is. This is a significant problem, as basic questions about …

Determining the valence of an odor to guide rapid approach–avoidance behavior is thought
to be one of the core tasks of the olfactory system, and yet little is known of the initial neural …

In an aging population, changes in sensory abilities can adversely affect enjoyment of a
meal. Age-related changes in identification ability and familiarity of food odors may influence …

What is known as an odor object is an integrated representation constructed from physical
features, and perceptual attributes mainly mediated by the olfactory and trigeminal systems …

Does hedonic appreciation evolve differently for pleasant odors and unpleasant odors
during normal aging? To answer this question we combined psychophysics and electro …