Multisensory flavor perception: The relationship between congruency, pleasantness, and odor referral to the mouth.

Our hedonic response to a food is determined by its flavor, an inherently multisensory experience that extends beyond the mere addition of its odor and taste. While congruency is known to be important for multisensory processes in general, little is known about its specific role in flavor processing. The aim of the present study was to delineate the effects of odor-taste congruency on two central aspects of flavor: odor referral (or mislocalization) to the mouth, and pleasantness. We further aimed to test whether an eventual effect on pleasantness was mediated by odor referral. Aqueous solutions containing odors and tastes were prepared to create food-like stimuli with varying degrees of congruency, ranging from maximally incongruent to maximally congruent in nine steps. Thirty participants reported where they perceived the odors, and how much they liked the solutions. Congruency had a positive linear effect both on odor referral to the oral cavity and on pleasantness. However, the effect of congruency on pleasantness was not mediated by odor referral. These results indicate that as an odor-taste mixture approximates a mental representation of a familiar food, its components are increasingly merged into one perceptual object sensed in the mouth. In parallel, the mixture is evaluated as increasingly pleasant, which promotes consumption of familiar foods that have been determined through experience to be non-toxic. While the modulatory role of congruency on pleasantness and odor referral was confirmed, our results also indicate that these effects arise through distinct perceptual mechanisms.

Retronasal odor concentration coding in glomeruli of the rat olfactory bulb.

The mammalian olfactory system processes odorants presented orthonasally (inhalation through the nose) and also retronasally (exhalation), enabling identification of both external as well as internal objects during food consumption. There are distinct differences between ortho- and retronasal air flow patterns, psychophysics, multimodal integration, and glomerular responses. Recent work indicates that rats can also detect odors retronasally, that rats can associate retronasal odors with tastes, and that their olfactory bulbs (OBs) can respond to retronasal odorants but differently than to orthonasal odors. To further characterize retronasal OB input activity patterns, experiments here focus on determining the effects of odor concentration on glomerular activity by monitoring calcium activity in the dorsal OB of rats using a dextran-conjugated calcium-sensitive dye in vivo. Results showed reliable concentration-response curves that differed between odorants, and recruitment of additional glomeruli, as odor concentration increased. We found evidence of different concentration-response functions between glomeruli, that in turn depended on odor. Further, the relation between dynamics and concentration differed remarkably among retronasal odorants. These dynamics are suggested to reduce the odor map ambiguity based on response amplitude. Elucidating the coding of retronasal odor intensity is fundamental to the understanding of feeding behavior and the neural basis of flavor. These data further establish and refine the rodent model of flavor neuroscience.