Memory, and Olfaction: How age modulates memory and olfactory abilities and their underlying neural circuits

The study will investigate the factors influencing olfactory abilities in humans, evaluating the impact of demographic, personality, and mnemonic variables. Since age, in particular, is one of the factors that most significantly influence memory and olfactory capacities, the effect of this variable will be assessed by including people (named samples) of different ages in the study. The characteristics of the samples (age, personality traits, mnemonic and olfactory abilities) will be correlated with the functional neural circuits involved in olfactory processing, by means of a task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol. The same protocol will be used to assess the brain mechanisms underlying olfactory learning through a re-evaluation after specific olfactory training using the main odorants. Our study will allow us to evaluate the olfactory abilities and the effect of physiological aging in healthy subjects. Currently, the commercial tests available for the evaluation of olfactory abilities cannot assess the processing of different odorants. Indeed, the present protocol will provide detailed quantitative data on this ability and can be used to construct effective training. Since some of the odorants used will be implemented in the task-based fMRI protocol, the correlation between olfactory abilities and the activity of the olfactory brain network will be more immediate and robust. We expect differences in olfactory and memory performance across age groups that might correlate with different activations of the olfactory brain regions. We also expect training to produce improvement in olfactory abilities that could be reflected in brain plasticity phenomena.