Odor-driven face-like categorization in the human infant brain

Rekow, Diane; Baudouin, Jean‐Yves; Poncet, Fanny; Damon, Fabrice; Durand, Karine; Schaal, Benoı̂st; Rossion, Bruno; Leleu, Arnaud

doi:10.1073/pnas.2014979118

Cited by 42 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 73 publications

(87 reference statements)

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“…Such inverse relationship between olfactory-visual integration and the strength of the sole visual response has already been observed for facelike categorization in infants (Rekow et al, 2021b). At the neural level, the disambiguating effect of odors suggests effective connectivity between the olfactory and the visual systems, in line with body odors activating the lateral fusiform gyrus (Prehn-Kristensen et al, 2009;Zheng et al, 2018;Zhou and Chen, 2009), a category-selective visual region that hosts face-selective areas.…”

supporting

confidence: 55%

“…tion in adults (e.g., Gao et al, 2018;Hagen et al, 2020;Jacques et al, 2016a), and infants (de Heering and Leleu et al, 2020;Rekow et al, 2021bRekow et al, , 2020. Base objects were presented without interstimulus interval at a rapid 12-Hz rate (i.e., 12 images / second, ≈ 83 ms per image, Figure 1B) and images of either human faces, cars, or facelike objects (one target category per sequence) were periodically interspersed every 9 th stimulus, corresponding to a category-selective rate of 1.33 Hz (i.e., 12 / 9; 750 ms between each category exemplar).…”

Section: F F F F F F F F F Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At 4 months of age, maternal body odor orients the infant's gaze towards a face when it is paired with a car (Durand et al, 2013), and enhances a face-selective neural response over the right occipitotemporal cortex (Leleu et al, 2020). The latter effect is selective to face categorization, as no effect is found for a nonface category (i.e., cars: Rekow et al, 2020), except for nonface objects perceived as faces (i.e., facelike objects; Rekow et al, 2021b). Hence, whether olfactoryvisual interaction for generic face categorization is maintained in adulthood must be examined.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The neural underpinnings of these odor influences on facial information have been explored, revealing various patterns of modulations in "visual" brain regions (Cecchetto et al, 2020;Wudarczyk et al, 2016;Novak et al, 2015;Seubert et al, 2010), or in the EEG activity elicited by the face stimulus (Adolph et al, 2013;Cook et al, 2017;Forscher and Li, 2012;Leleu et al, 2015b;Poncet et al, 2021;Rubin et al, 2012;Syrjänen et al, 2018). Interestingly, given the high relevance of the sense of smell at the beginning of life (Schaal et al, 2020, for review) compared to the relative immaturity of the visual system (Braddick and Atkinson, 2011), odors strongly influence how infants look at faces (Durand et al, 2020(Durand et al, , 2013, or how their brain responds to facial information (Jessen, 2020;Leleu et al, 2020;Rekow et al, 2020Rekow et al, , 2021b.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, in EEG studies, odor effects have been rarely explored for selective responses to a variety of inputs from a given category contrasted to many other object categories (e.g., only a few individual faces for each emotion in the numerous studies investigating the effect of odors on the perception of facial expressions) and sometimes measured at late latencies over parietal and frontal regions (e.g., Hörberg et al, 2020;Ohla et al, 2018), contrary to occipito-temporal category-selective EEG responses (e.g., Jacques et al, 2016a). To our knowledge, the only EEG studies measuring how odors modulate a category-selective visual response have been conducted in 4-month-old infants (Leleu et al, 2020;Rekow et al, 2020Rekow et al, , 2021b. Whether odors affect automatic visual categorization in the adult brain is still to be established.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smell what you hardly see: Odors assist categorization in the human visual cortex

Rekow

Baudouin

Durand

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Visual categorization is the brain ability to rapidly and automatically respond to widely variable visual inputs in a category-selective manner (i.e., distinct responses between categories and similar responses within categories). Whether category-selective neural responses are purely visual or can be influenced by other sensory modalities remains unclear. Here, we test whether odors modulate visual categorization, expecting that odors facilitate the neural categorization of congruent visual objects, especially when the visual category is ambiguous. Scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded while natural images depicting various objects were displayed in rapid 12-Hz streams (i.e., 12 images / second) and variable exemplars of a target category (either human faces, cars, or facelike objects in dedicated sequences) were interleaved every 9th stimulus to tag category-selective responses at 12/9 = 1.33 Hz in the EEG frequency spectrum. During visual stimulation, participants (N = 26) were implicitly exposed to odor contexts (either body, gasoline or baseline odors) and performed an orthogonal cross-detection task. We identify clear category-selective responses to every category over the occipito-temporal cortex, with the largest response for human faces and the lowest for facelike objects. Critically, body odor boosts the response to the ambiguous facelike objects (i.e., either perceived as nonface objects or faces) over the right hemisphere, especially for participants reporting their presence post-stimulation. By contrast, odors do not significantly modulate other category-selective responses, nor the general visual response recorded at 12 Hz, revealing a specific influence on the categorization of congruent ambiguous stimuli. Overall, these findings support the view that the brain actively uses cues from the different senses to readily categorize visual inputs, and that olfaction, which is generally considered as poorly functional in humans, is well placed to disambiguate visual information.

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confidence: 55%

Section: F F F F F F F F F Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smell what you hardly see: Odors assist categorization in the human visual cortex

Rekow

Baudouin

Durand

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Testing detectability, attractivity, hedonic specificity, extractability, and robustness of colostrum odor—Toward an olfactory bioassay for human neonates

Klaey‐Tassone,

Soussignan,

Durand

et al. 2024

Developmental Psychobiology

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Human milk odor is attractive and appetitive for human newborns. Here, we studied behavioral and heart‐rate (HR) responses of 2‐day‐old neonates to the odor of human colostrum. To evaluate detection in two conditions of stimulus delivery, we first presented the odor of total colostrum against water. Second, the hedonic specificity of total colostrum odor was tested against vanilla odor. Third, we delivered only the fresh effluvium of colostrum separated from the colostrum matrix; the stability of this colostrum effluvium was then tested after deep congelation; finally, after sorptive extraction of fresh colostrum headspace, we assessed the activity of colostrum volatiles eluting from the gas chromatograph (GC). Regardless of the stimulus‐delivery method, neonates displayed attraction reactions (HR decrease) as well as appetitive oral responses to the odor of total colostrum but not to vanilla odor. The effluvium separated from the fresh colostrum matrix remained appetitive but appeared labile under deep freezing. Finally, volatiles from fresh colostrum effluvium remained behaviorally active after GC elution, although at lower magnitude. In sum, fresh colostrum effluvium and its eluate elicited a consistent increase in newborns’ oral activity (relative to water or vanilla), and they induced shallow HR decrease. Newborns’ appetitive oral behavior was the most reproducible response criterion to the effluvium of colostrum. In conclusion, a set of unidentified volatile compounds from human colostrum is robust enough after extraction from the original matrix and chromatographic processing to continue eliciting appetitive responses in neonates, thus opening new directions to isolate and assay specific volatile molecules of colostrum.

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Tips from the Nose: Odor-Driven Visual Categorization in the Developing Human Brain

Rekow,

Leleu

2023

Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 15

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Odor-driven face-like categorization in the human infant brain

Cited by 42 publications

References 73 publications

Smell what you hardly see: Odors assist categorization in the human visual cortex

Smell what you hardly see: Odors assist categorization in the human visual cortex

Testing detectability, attractivity, hedonic specificity, extractability, and robustness of colostrum odor—Toward an olfactory bioassay for human neonates

Tips from the Nose: Odor-Driven Visual Categorization in the Developing Human Brain

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