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Hedonic-Specific Activity in Piriform Cortex During Odor Imagery Mimics That During Odor Perception

¹Laboratoire Neurosciences Sensorielles, Comportement, et Cognition, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité Mixte de Recherche 5020, Lyon, France; ²Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; and ³Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, California

Submitted 28 March 2007; accepted in final form 29 September 2007

Although it is known that visual imagery is accompanied by activity in visual cortical areas, including primary visual cortex, whether olfactory imagery exists remains controversial. Here we asked whether cue-dependent olfactory imagery was similarly accompanied by activity in olfactory cortex, and in particular whether hedonic-specific patterns of activity evident in olfactory perception would also be present during olfactory imagery. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure activity in subjects who alternated between smelling and imagining pleasant and unpleasant odors. Activity induced by imagining odors mimicked that induced by perceiving real odorants, not only in the particular brain regions activated, but also in its hedonic-specific pattern. For both real and imagined odors, unpleasant stimuli induced greater activity than pleasant stimuli in the left frontal portion of piriform cortex and left insula. These findings combine with findings from other modalities to suggest activation of primary sensory cortical structures during mental imagery of sensory events.