Karthik R Sreenivasan1, Xiaowei Zhuang1, Virendra Mishra1, Zhengshi Yang1, Gopikrishna Deshpande2, Sarah Banks1, and Dietmar Cordes1
1Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas, NV, United States, 2AU MRI Research Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States
Current study used fMRI to investigate
differences in effective connectivity and network topology between a group of
trained master sommeliers and untrained control participants during olfactory
tasks. Master sommeliers showed stronger connectivity originating
from regions involved in higher-level cognitive processes than the controls.
There was also increased small-world topology in the sommeliers. These findings
provide unique insights into the neuroplasticity in adulthood in the olfactory
network which may have added clinical importance in diseases like Alzheimer’s
and Parkinson’s where early neurodegeneration is isolated to regions important
in smell.
