The Impact of Acoustic fMRI-Noise on Olfactory Sensitivity and Perception

Sensory perception is neither static nor simple. The senses influence each other during multisensory stimulation and can be both suppressive and super-additive. As most knowledge of human olfactory perception is derived from functional neuroimaging studies, in particular fMRI, our current understand...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience 2019-05, Vol.406, p.262-267
Main Authors: Fjaeldstad, Alexander Wieck, Nørgaard, Hans Jacob, Fernandes, Henrique Miguel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation - adverse effects
Adult
Female
fMRI
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - adverse effects
Male
multisensory perception
Noise - adverse effects
olfaction
Olfactory Pathways - diagnostic imaging
Olfactory Pathways - physiology
Olfactory Perception - physiology
Random Allocation
sound
Young Adult
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Summary:Sensory perception is neither static nor simple. The senses influence each other during multisensory stimulation and can be both suppressive and super-additive. As most knowledge of human olfactory perception is derived from functional neuroimaging studies, in particular fMRI, our current understanding of olfactory perception has systematically been investigated in an environment with concurrent loud sounds. To date, the confounding effects of acoustic fMRI-noise during scanning on olfactory perception have not yet been investigated. In this study we investigate how acoustic noise derived from the rapid switching of MR gradient coils, affects olfactory perception. For this, 50 subjects were tested in both a silent setting and an fMRI-noise setting, in a randomised order. We found that fMRI-related acoustic noise had a significant negative effect on the olfactory detection threshold score. No significant effects were identified on olfactory discrimination, identification, identification certainty, hedonic rating, or intensity rating. •In randomised groups, participants underwent olfactory testing in a silent and fMRI-noise setting.•The acoustic noise produced by fMRI scans has a negative effect olfactory threshold scores•Loud fMRI-noise did not impact olfactory identification or olfactory discrimination•No significant effects were found for certainty of identification, intensity, or hedonic rating between sound settings
ISSN:0306-4522
1873-7544
DOI:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.03.028