Researchers from the United States found out that the preceding meal in people affects the recognition of its smell responsible for smelling the areas of the brain. Their work was published in the magazine PLOS Biology.
In the course of the experiment, scientists from the North-West University were given to the participants of the study to sniff a mixture of two smells – “food” and “non-hospitable”. So, the smell of cinnamon buns was mixed with cedar, and pizza with a smell of pine. The share of each of the smells varied. All this time in the scanner of the magnetic resonance tomography (MRI) participants in the experiment were asked to call, which of the smells they were felt dominant.
It was done twice – once when people did not eat for six o’clock, and the other when they had taken food, corresponding to one of the “food” odors. At the same time, in the first case, the researcher prepared the same food in the next room. After that, scientists appreciated what the proportion of “food smell” in both cases was necessary in order for the sense of man to consider the smell of dominant. It turned out that for hungry people, this share was less – in a mixture of “cinnamon” and “cedar” smells, they needed only 50 percent of the first (compared to 80 percent for the filled).
MRI studied showed that the full participants of the experiment compared with the hungry accuracy of the recognition of the smells of food in those responsible for these areas of the brain decreased. Their brain also recognized the “food” smell less often as a smell of food.