Animals perceive their olfactory environment not only from odors originating in the external world (orthonasal route), but also from odors released in the oral cavity while eating food (retronasal route). We delivered odorants via the orthonasal and retronasal routes and measured whole olfactory bulb (OB) glomerular activity responses by fMRI. Our fMRI BOLD activation maps from the whole OB revealed gross spatial activation patterns that are largely independent of stimulus route, except for lower efficacy of retronasal stimuli as compared to orthonasal stimuli. This different encoding likely alters the odor perception for food vs. smelling.
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