Functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis of olfactory brain in healthy adult men

WANG Chengbo; FENG Yong; ZHOU Lianzhong; ZHANG Jinfeng

Abstract：Objective To observe the differences of brain functional activation area after olfactory stimulation in young men and middle-aged men with normal olfactory and to analyze the effect of age on olfactory excitability.Methods Thorty-four right-handed healthy males without olfactory disorder were divided into the young group and the middle group according to their age.The subjects were given the same olfactory stimulation task,the stimulant was isovaleric acid,and the imaging data were ob-tained by functional magnetic resonance scanning.SPM8 software was used for data processing,and the results were statistically analyzed.Results The activation region of the youth group was as follows:right parahippocampal gyrus,right temporal lobe,right frontal lobe,right frontal gyrus,right frontal medial back,the left insula,back in the left frontal and activation area is lo-cated in the middle age group in the right frontal back,right inferior frontal gyrus,right frontal lobe,right cingulate,back in the right temporal and left parahippocampal gyrus,right temporal gyrus,left inferior frontal gyrus.There was no difference in brain activation between the two groups by independent t-test(t =1.166 P>0.05).Conclusion The olfactory center affects emotion and memory,affects the vacant state of the brain,the space of memory and the sequence of memory encoding,and cocodes with these functions.The sense of smell has a right-sided advantage and there is no difference in olfactory center between normal youth and middle age.Olfactory brain fMRI can be used as an objective method to detect olfactory function in clinic.