Olfactory influences on appetite and satiety in humans

Abstract

YEOMANS, M. R. Olfactory influences on appetite and satiety in humans. PHYSIOL BEHAV.200X; 00(X): 000-000. Odor stimuli play a major role in perception of food flavor. Foodrelated odors have also been shown to increase rated appetite, and induce salivation and release of gastric acid and insulin. However, our ability to identify an odor as food-related, and our liking for food-related odors, are both learned responses. In conditioning studies, repeated experience of odors with sweet and sour tastes result in enhanced ratings of sensory quality of the paired taste for the odor on its own. More recent studies also report increased pleasantness ratings for odors paired with sucrose for participants who like sweet tastes, and conversely decreased liking and increased bitterness for quinine-paired odors. When odors were experienced in combination with sucrose when hungry, liking was not increased if tested sated, suggesting that expression of acquired liking for odors depends on current motivational state.Other studies report sensory-specific satiety is seen with food-related odors. Overall, these studies suggest that once an odor is experienced in a food-related context, that odor acquires the ability to modify both preparatory and satiety-related components of ingestion.

Susceptibility to Overeating Affects the Impact of Savory or Sweet Drinks on Satiation, Reward, and Food Intake in Nonobese Women3

“…For example, sensations of hunger, food selection, and the dual monitoring of liking and implicit wanting may help to characterize specific phenotypes of diabetes, obesity, and eating disorders. Early identification of traits that predispose individuals to overconsume, and the specific behavior driving overconsumption, could help to optimize nutritional strategies such as the use of sensory properties of food to prevent weight gain (10,(49)(50)(51).…”

Hypothalamus-Olfactory System Crosstalk: Orexin A Immunostaining in Mice

“…Even though convergent data revealed a link between olfactory perception and satiety (Pager et al, 1972; Pager, 1978; Yeomans, 2006), the neuroanatomical basis for this relationship and the exact connectome between olfaction centers and the hypothalamus is poorly known. Figure 1 summarizes the neuroanatomical connection between olfactory centers and the hypothalamus.…”

“…This suggests that one of the first ways in which the brain regulates food intake behavior is by modulating the perception of the food odorant itself. Indeed, such change in sensory perception has been defined as alliesthesia (Cabanac and Duclaux, 1973; Duclaux et al, 1973) and sensory specific satiety (SSS; Yeomans, 2006). At the most peripheral level – the olfactory epithelium (OE) – many neuropeptides and metabolic hormones such as Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH), Neuronal Peptide Y (NPY), leptin, adiponectin, and orexins are thought to modulate the sensitivity of olfactory sensory neurons in different species.…”

Semantic Knowledge Influences Prewired Hedonic Responses to Odors

“…During the human life span, odor perception and its hedonic tone are modulated by stimulus concentration [19], [20], [21], repeated [15] and previous experience [16], [17], [18], [22], current physiological status [23], stimulus exposure context (in association with trigeminal [24] or gustatory stimuli [25], [26]). Moreover, in accordance with our findings, there are several lines of evidence that olfactory semantic knowledge modulates hedonic perception of odors.…”