Sensory-specific satiety-related olfactory activation of the human orbitofrontal cortex

When a food is eaten to satiety, its reward value decreases. This decrease is usually greater for the food eaten to satiety than for other foods, an e ffect termed sensory-specific satiety. In an fMRI investigation it was show n that for a region of the orbitofrontal cortex the activation produced by the odour of the food eaten to satiety decreased, whereas there was no simi lar decrease for the odour of a food not eaten in the meal. This effect was shown both by a voxel-wise SPM contrast (p < 0.05 corrected) and an ANOVA performed on the mean percentage change in BOLD signal in the identified cl usters of voxels (p < 0.006). These results show that activation of a regio n of the human orbitofrontal cortex is related to olfactory sensory-specifi c satiety. NeuroReport 11:399-403 (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.