• Alessandro Micarelli, Marco Pagani, Agostino Chiaravalloti, Ernesto Bruno, Isabella Pavone, Matteo Candidi, Roberta Danieli, Orazio Schillaci, and Marco Alessandrini.
• Department of Clinical Sciences and Translational Medicine (AM, EB, IP, MA), Tor Vergata University; Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies-CNR (MP), Rome, Italy; Department of Nuclear Medicine (MP), Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Biomedicine and Prevention (AC, RD, OS), Tor Vergata University; Department of Psychology (MC), "Sapienza" University, Rome; and IRCCS Neuromed (OS), Pozzilli, Italy.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2014 Oct 1; 93 (19): e103.

AbstractThe aim of this article is to investigate the cortical metabolic arrangements in olfactory processing by using F fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography.Twenty-six normosmic individuals (14 women and 12 men; mean age 46.7 ± 10 years) were exposed to a neutral olfactory condition (NC) and, after 1 month, to a pure olfactory condition (OC) in a relatively ecological environment, that is, outside the scanner. All the subjects were injected with 185-210 megabecquerel of F FDG during both stimulations. Statistical parametric mapping version 2 was used in order to assess differences between NC and OC.As a result, we found a significant higher glucose consumption during OC in the cuneus, lingual, and parahippocampal gyri, mainly in the left hemisphere. During NC, our results show a relative higher glucose metabolism in the left superior, inferior, middle, medial frontal, and orbital gyri as well as in the anterior cingulate cortex.The present investigation, performed with a widely available functional imaging clinical tool, may help to better understand the neural responses associated to olfactory processing in healthy individuals and in patients with olfactory disorders by acquiring data in an ecologic, noise-free, and resting condition in which possible cerebral activations related to unwanted attentional processes might be avoided.

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